Water Torture Threats to Wimax Technology

Threat of Water Torture in Wimax Technology

Threats are very common to the wireless networks and the Wimax technology is not the one that still safe for wireless communication. A common threat to wimax arises from the water torture attack, in which an attacker sends a series of frames to drain out the receiver’s battery. Additionally, attacker with a properly positioned Radio Frequency (RF) receiver can interrupt the messages sent through wireless, and therefore a security mechanism in the design is required.

Current security mechanisms do not address well in IEEE 802.16a Mesh modes network, which lead into new security threats, such as the reliability of the next-hop mesh node. Introducing mobility in IEEE 802.16e standard will make the attacker’s life easier. As the physical location of the attacker is not an issue, management messages are more at risk than in IEEE 802.11. Therefore, it is important to maintain a secure connectivity while a mobile Subscriber Station (SS) shifts between wimax Base Stations. (D Johnston, J Walker, 2004)

An attacker can easily write to a radio frequency channel with the help of properly configured Radio Frequency transmitter to build new frame, capture, change, and retransmit frames from authorized station. The design is required to ensure a data authenticity technology. It is also likely to resend a valid, already sent frame unchanged. In case of long distance transmission, radio interference and distance may possibly allow an attacker to alter and selectively forward frames, in a situation where two authorized stations are not able to contact directly with each other. For that reason, the design is required to detect replayed frames during transmission. (David Johnston, Jesse Walker, 2004)

See also other major threats to Wimax Technology:

Rouge Base Station

DoS (Denial of Service) Attacks

Data Link-Layer Threat

Application Layer Threat

Physical Layer Threat

Privacy Sub-Layer Threat

Mutual Authentication

Key Management Problem In WiMAX

Threat of Identity Theft

Black Hat Threat

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