{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34282"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34282","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Security threats to the MAC-layer in wireless networks","abstract":"Medium access control (MAC) protocol security is important in wireless networks due to the lack of physical access control that normally exists in wired networks in the form of connecting a cable. Most efforts in standards organizations and academic research focus on the requirements of confidentiality and authentication. These approaches to wireless MAC-layer security often ignore two other threats to security: attacks against availability and incorrect implementation of MAC protocol and driver routines. The former can prevent a user from communicating at all, whereas the latter can have consequences ranging from dropped packets to complete host compromise. This dissertation comprehensively investigates the threats against wireless MAC protocols: being uncooperative, denial-of-service (DoS), sniffing, man-in-the-middle (MITM), and fuzzing. I provide a mathematical model to understand how network parameters impact the uncooperative carrier-sense-misbehaving attackers. Next, this dissertation shows a novel DoS attack that targets queuing behavior of access points by exploiting some factors of the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. Further, I propose a scheme that establishes a wireless connection that is secure against sniffing and MITM between a client device and an access point in IEEE 802.11 hotspots. Finally, I propose MAC-layer threats including fuzzing in IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX networks.","abstract_html":"Medium access control (MAC) protocol security is important in wireless networks due to the lack of physical access control that normally exists in wired networks in the form of connecting a cable. Most efforts in standards organizations and academic research focus on the requirements of confidentiality and authentication. These approaches to wireless MAC-layer security often ignore two other threats to security: attacks against availability and incorrect implementation of MAC protocol and driver routines. The former can prevent a user from communicating at all, whereas the latter can have consequences ranging from dropped packets to complete host compromise. This dissertation comprehensively investigates the threats against wireless MAC protocols: being uncooperative, denial-of-service (DoS), sniffing, man-in-the-middle (MITM), and fuzzing. I provide a mathematical model to understand how network parameters impact the uncooperative carrier-sense-misbehaving attackers. Next, this dissertation shows a novel DoS attack that targets queuing behavior of access points by exploiting some factors of the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. Further, I propose a scheme that establishes a wireless connection that is secure against sniffing and MITM between a client device and an access point in IEEE 802.11 hotspots. Finally, I propose MAC-layer threats including fuzzing in IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX networks.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Choi, Jihyuk"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Electrical & Computer Engr","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Hu, Yih-Chun","Borisov, Nikita","Caesar, Matthew C.","Vaidya, Nitin H."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-09-18T21:09:27Z","date_published":"2012-09-18T21:09:27Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:31Z","subjects":["Medium access protocol","Wireless networks","Security"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2012 Jihyuk Choi"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34282","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Hu, Yih-Chun","Borisov, Nikita","Caesar, Matthew C.","Vaidya, Nitin H."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Choi, Jihyuk"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2012-09-18T21:09:27Z","2012-08"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Electrical & Computer Engr"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Medium access protocol","Wireless networks","Security"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2012 Jihyuk Choi"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34282"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Medium access control (MAC) protocol security is important in wireless networks due to the lack of physical access control that normally exists in wired networks in the form of connecting a cable. 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Further, I propose a scheme that establishes a wireless connection that is secure against sniffing and MITM between a client device and an access point in IEEE 802.11 hotspots. Finally, I propose MAC-layer threats including fuzzing in IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX networks.","Item withdrawn by Alexis Thompson (athmpsn1@illinois.edu) on 2012-07-09T14:09:36Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Choi_Jihyuk.pdf: 5484142 bytes, checksum: 0cd8b950ba792d69753654b6d8d43238 (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2012-09-18T21:09:27Z (GMT). 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These approaches to wireless MAC-layer security often ignore two other threats to security: attacks against availability and incorrect implementation of MAC protocol and driver routines. The former can prevent a user from communicating at all, whereas the latter can have consequences ranging from dropped packets to complete host compromise. This dissertation comprehensively investigates the threats against wireless MAC protocols: being uncooperative, denial-of-service (DoS), sniffing, man-in-the-middle (MITM), and fuzzing. I provide a mathematical model to understand how network parameters impact the uncooperative carrier-sense-misbehaving attackers. Next, this dissertation shows a novel DoS attack that targets queuing behavior of access points by exploiting some factors of the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. Further, I propose a scheme that establishes a wireless connection that is secure against sniffing and MITM between a client device and an access point in IEEE 802.11 hotspots. 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