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Network Security: Current Status and Future Directions, Edited by C. Douligeris and D. N. Serpanos
Copyright © 2007 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
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272 Part Three Mobility and Security
problems. In general, the risks associated with WLANs can be grouped into two
categories. First, data transfers from one endpoint to another are not constrained
to a cable; therefore, any device within the range of the transmitter of the
wireless signal can intercept data transmissions. Second, several protocol
weaknesses unique to the 802.11 standard can be exploited to allow
unauthorized access or cause denial-of-service attacks on a wireless local
network.
The Bluetooth protocol is designed for wireless communication between
Bluetooth-enabled equipment. Several issues arise with respect to the security
of communications between such machines. Bluetooth is criticized for not being
secure, and as it is used in a large number of mobile phones, security holes
might allow illegal access to personal information like phone books or business
cards. It might even be possible for an attacker to get phone or data calls on
another subscriber’s account. It is clear that the weaknesses in specifications as
well as implementation mistakes might cause severe damage to the users.
Moreover, while in the traditional mobile computing environment
communication is performed through static infrastructures, with base stations
that support the communication between wireless end nodes, mobile ad hoc
networks (MANETs) are a paradigm for mobile communication in which
wireless nodes do not rely on any underlying static network infrastructure for
services such as packet routing, name resolution, node authentication, or
distribution of the computational resources. The communication medium is
broadcast and the nodes can be regarded as wireless mobile hosts with limited
power, range, and bandwidth. Nodes in range communicate in a direct peer-to-
peer manner. Nodes out of range establish routing paths dynamically through
other nodes when possible. Such networks can be set up and deployed rapidly
anywhere, anytime.
The deployment of MANETs is now considered for several applications.
Examples include emergency deployments, disaster recovery, search-and-rescue
missions, sensor networks, and military (battlefield) operations. Other
applications involve home-area wireless networking, distributed networking,
dynamic group communication, on-the-fly conferencing applications, and
communication between mobile robots. Since the network nodes are mobile, the
network topology frequently changes. Communication links are established or
broken as nodes move and the network may get partitioned with the
connectivity restricted to the partitions.
The primary concern with ad hoc networks is their unpredictable topology
and their bandwidth limitations. As a result it may be much harder (or even
impossible) to establish security associations and find secure routes between
Part Three Mobility and Security 273