Title

Wi-Fi Access Denial Of Service Attack To Smartphones

Keywords

Android; Denial-of-service; IPhone; Mobile platforms; Wi-Fi access

Abstract

This paper presents a novel denial-of-service attack targeted at popular smartphones. This type of attack, which we call a Denial-of-Convenience (DoC) attack, prevents non-technical savvy victims from utilising data services by exploiting the Wi-Fi connectivity protocol of smartphones. By setting up a fake Wi-Fi access point without internet access, an attacker can prompt a smartphone to automatically terminate a valid mobile broadband connection. Thus, preventing the targeted smartphone from having internet access unless the victim is capable of identifying the attack and manually disable the Wi-Fi features. We demonstrate that most popular smartphones, including Android and iPhone phones, are vulnerable to DoC attacks. To address this attack we propose, implement, and evaluate a novel validation protocol that uses the cellular network to send a secret key phrase to an internet validation server. Then, attempts to retrieve it via the newly established Wi-Fi channel to validate the Wi-Fi access point. Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Publication Title

International Journal of Security and Networks

Volume

8

Issue

3

Number of Pages

117-129

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSN.2013.057698

Socpus ID

84888879306 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84888879306

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