Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Denial-of-Service Attacks Threaten Wireless Data Networks

Posted by Soulskill on from the filling-the-ether dept.

alphadogg writes "Forget spam, viruses, worms, malware, and phishing. These threats are apparently old-school when compared to a new class of denial-of-service attacks that threaten wireless data networks. The threats were outlined in a talk in NYC Thursday by Krishan Sabnani, vice president of networking research at Bell Labs, at the Cyber Infrastructure Protection Conference at City College of New York. Sabnani said they are the result of inherent weaknesses in Mobile IP, a protocol that uses tunneling and complex network triangulation to allow mobile devices to move freely from one network to another. 'We need to especially monitor the mobile networks — with limited bandwidth and terminal battery — for DOS attacks,' Sabnani said, adding that the newest DOS attacks on wireless networks involve repeatedly establishing and releasing connections. These attacks are easy to launch and hard to detect, he said."

3 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Backward? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think they got this backward. The DoS attack is the old school one since there is limited money in it (unless you are an organization that does DoS threat blackmailing, but even those don't make the kind of money that more modern attacks can generate). DoS is the old school one, not the worms, malware, and phishing that the summary claims are old school.

  2. What attack? by yourassOA · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The article doesn't say anything. New "old school" Dos attacks. I feel dumber for having been suckered into reading the article.

  3. Re:I would rather have DOS by dk90406 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Keeping your analogy, a DoS or DDoS is IMO like keeping you and me from entering (or exiting) my house through doors or windows. It will not cost me a lot, unless I am a company, depending on a lot of traffic through the door.
    Your truck would be an ICE breaker that opens my house for all. Not the same, since I would notice a locked down house, but not necessarily someone who crept through my window.