An IEEE 802.11 MAC Layer Covert Channel Based On Supported Rates

Abstract

Wireless Local Area Networks present several vulnerabilities that are exploited, and as a result, numerous attacks have been developed and used against them. Although countermeasures to detect and eliminate such threats have been created throughout the years, few methods exist to prevent the attacks. IEEE 802.11 covert channels could be considered a candidate to prevent Wi-Fi attacks since they allow secret communication between the client station and the access point without establishing an association. They can be implemented in frames that attackers do not target. This paper presents a new covert channel that prevents Wi-Fi attacks. We also describe metrics, and discuss the performance results of the proposed solution. We show that the new protocol is able to achieve high efficiency of operation.

Keywords

• steganography
• covert channel
• ieee 802.11 networks
• performance evaluation