New Denial-of-Service Attacks Threaten Wireless Data Networks

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."

Comments

Technical Limitations.

[Celeste R]

DoS is a natural part of the race of technology.

Can it be used against us? Yes.
Can we prevent those attacks? Most likely, and with a little time.

The real question is -how likely- is it to be a problem?

DoS attacks on the internet can be sent from anywhere.
DoS attacks on the celluar network can only be sent from within that area. (afaik)

This limitation alone limits the scope of this type of DoS attack, making it a tool of advance planning and high-profile national security aspects than a tool to be feared by the average Joe.