Uncovering Wireless Network Vulnerabilities- Threats and Mitigation Strategies

Wireless networks are more vulnerable to security breaches than wired ones, a trait that is due to their convenience and ubiquitousness, for example, MAC spoofing, man-in-the-middle attacks, and denial-of-service attacks.

MAC Spoofing (Identity Theft)

Identity theft or MAC spoofing occurs when network traffic is intercepted by an attacker, and the MAC address of a computer with network privileges is obtained. Most wireless systems have MAC filtering so that only authorized computers can access the network — computers with certain MAC IDs. However, there are numerous applications that can “sniff” networks. Combining such programs with other software enables the hacker to easily go around this obstacle by allowing the machine to impersonate any desired MAC address. Secure authentication mechanisms like MFA and Network Access Control can be used to avoid this.

Man-in-the-Middle Attacks

Man-in-the-middle attackers make computers think they are logging into a soft AP (Access Point) that they configure. Thereafter, using another wireless card, the intruder connects to legitimate access points, allowing normal traffic between the transparent hacking PC and the real network. Afterward, they can sniff through traffic. This can be mitigated using strong encryption and protocols like HTTPS (Choi et al. 81).

Denial-of-Service Attacks

When an assailant endlessly bombards a targeted network or AP (Access Point) with false requests, failure messages, early successful connection messages, or other commands, it constitutes a denial-of-service attack (DoS). They may also bring down the network, preventing legitimate users from accessing it entirely. Exploiting vulnerabilities in protocols such as Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) underlies DoS attacks. Wireless intrusion prevention systems (WIPS) can be installed to detect when DoS attacks happen and block associated IPs, thus mitigating DoS attacks.

Works Cited

Choi, Min-kyu, et al. “Wireless network security: Vulnerabilities, threats and countermeasures.” International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering 3.3 (2008): 77-86.

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Question

Discussion: Wireless Networks A
While most of the security considerations and methods are the same for wired and wireless networks, a wireless network does have vulnerabilities that its wired relative doesn’t.