"Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are a common threat to 802.11 wireless networks. Using widely available software and an inexpensive wireless LAN card, an attacker can halt the service of a wireless LAN at their whim. While very effective, these tools lack persistence in their operation – when the attacker stops the attack or leaves the range of the victim network, client workstations automatically resume their connectivity to the network.
This paper describes a new style of DoS attack against 802.11 networks that abuses flaws in the firmware of popular 802.11 wireless cards. The impact of this attack is more damaging than other 802.11 DoS attacks, requiring as few as two packets from an attacker to deny service to all target users, often requiring a system restart to recover from the attack. It is the author’s hope that the public disclosure of this flaw will motivate 802.11 product manufacturers to resolve firmware flaws in their products, and to make those updates freely available to customers."
Click on the link below for the full paper:
http://802.11ninja.net/papers/firmware_attack.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment