DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS IN IEEE 802.11S WIRELESS MESH NETWORKS
Open Access
Author:
Dutt, Sudeep
Graduate Program:
Computer Science and Engineering
Degree:
Master of Science
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
February 24, 2009
Committee Members:
George Kesidis, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor George Kesidis, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Sencun Zhu, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keywords:
Wireless DDoS IEEE 802.11s WMN
Abstract:
IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN's) have become ubiquitous over the past few years. IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) can potentially provide cheap city wide internet connectivity over the next decade. Security is a major concern for wireless networks due to the easily accessibly unbounded communication medium. The focus in this thesis is Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS) in WMNs. The central problem is that management, control and action frames are not protected in WMNs. Relatively inexpensive equipment can be used to inject malicious management, control and action frames in the WMN's resulting in complete unavailability of the network along with significant depletion of network and power resources. Sybil, Masquerading and Routing DDoS attacks have been focused upon. Solutions have been implemented in the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. The attacks and the solutions have been simulated in the WLAN network simulator GTNetS. The results show that the solutions render the attacks in effective with minimum overhead. This thesis reveals the security requirements for WMNs in order to successfully counter DDoS attacks.
