CAPEC-604

Detailed Abstraction Level
Meta — Very abstract, high-level category
Standard — Specific enough to understand
Detailed — Tied to specific technique Draft MITRE CAPEC Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development
Incomplete — Partially defined
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CAPEC Likelihood: Medium Severity: High
Wi-Fi Jamming

Description

In this attack scenario, the attacker actively transmits on the Wi-Fi channel to prevent users from transmitting or receiving data from the targeted Wi-Fi network. There are several known techniques to perform this attack – for example: the attacker may flood the Wi-Fi access point (e.g. the retransmission device) with deauthentication frames. Another method is to transmit high levels of noise on the RF band used by the Wi-Fi network.

Prerequisites

Lack of anti-jam features in 802.11

Lack of authentication on deauthentication/disassociation packets on 802.11-based networks

Mitigations

Countermeasures have been proposed for both disassociation flooding and RF jamming, however these countermeasures are not standardized and would need to be supported on both the retransmission device and the handset in order to be effective. Commercial products are not currently available that support jamming countermeasures for Wi-Fi.

Skills Required

[Low] This attack can be performed by low capability attackers with freely available tools. Commercial tools are also available that can target select networks or all WiFi networks within a range of several miles.