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Overcoming Wifi Jamming and other security challenges at the Edge

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Computing at the EDGE

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Abstract

Wi-Fi technology is seen as a commodity today because it is very widely used. Given that Wi-Fi involves transmitting electromagnetic waves through the air, it is susceptible to attack vectors, at both the physical and data-link layers, that do not exist in fixed line networks such as Ethernet. Signal jamming impacts the physical layer and attacks the digital signal processing of the modulated electromagnetic waves at the receiving station. Control and management frames exist at the media access control (MAC) sub-layer of the data-link layer. Spoofing of these frames is possible using even single board computers as long as they have Wi-Fi chips that can function as access points. A particular sub-class of attack targets leakage of information from a system, and this kind of attack is primarily concerned with the discovery of the secret information such as encryption keys that underpins modern cryptographic processing. This chapter explains the underlying principles of these aspects of Wi-Fi technology and suggests, where possible, defences against attacks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Computer Science (EEECS), Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

    Charles J. Gillan

  2. Worldsensing SL, Barcelona, Spain

    Denis Guilhot

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  1. Charles J. Gillan
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  2. Denis Guilhot
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Correspondence to Charles J. Gillan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. BELFAST, UK

    Georgios Karakonstantis

  2. Queen’s University Belfast, BELFAST, UK

    Charles J. Gillan

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Gillan, C.J., Guilhot, D. (2022). Overcoming Wifi Jamming and other security challenges at the Edge. In: Karakonstantis, G., Gillan, C.J. (eds) Computing at the EDGE. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74536-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74536-3_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-74535-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-74536-3

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