Denial-of-Service Attacks on Battery-Powered Mobile Computers

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack is an incident in which the user is deprived of the services of a resource he is expected to have. With the increasing reliance on mobile devices like laptops and palmtops, a new type of DoS attack is possible that attacks the batteries of these devices, called "sleep deprivation attacks". The goal of sleep deprivation attacks is to rapidly drain the battery of the mobile devices, rendering the device inoperable long before the expected battery lifetime, thus denying the service the user expects from the mobile device. The purpose of this research is to investigate these types of attacks so that proper defense mechanisms can be put in place before the attacks become a more sophisticated and potent force. This research presents three different possible methods that can be adopted by an attacker to drain the battery of a device i.e. malignant attacks, benign attacks and network service request attacks. These attacks are implemented on a variety of mobile computing platforms like palmtops and a laptop and the corresponding results are presented. Finally, a mathematical model is presented that estimates the battery life of a device based on its power consumption in various power management states and expected usage. This model can also be used to predict the impact of a DoS attack on the battery life of the device under attack.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Krishnaswami, Jayan

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Martin, Thomas L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Ha, Dong Sam
• Hsiao, Michael S.

• battery
• mobile devices
• denial-of-service

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-02192004-003948

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/9718