4 research outputs found
WiFi Physical Layer Stays Awake and Responds When it Should Not
WiFi communication should be possible only between devices inside the same
network. However, we find that all existing WiFi devices send back
acknowledgments (ACK) to even fake packets received from unauthorized WiFi
devices outside of their network. Moreover, we find that an unauthorized device
can manipulate the power-saving mechanism of WiFi radios and keep them
continuously awake by sending specific fake beacon frames to them. Our
evaluation of over 5,000 devices from 186 vendors confirms that these are
widespread issues. We believe these loopholes cannot be prevented, and hence
they create privacy and security concerns. Finally, to show the importance of
these issues and their consequences, we implement and demonstrate two attacks
where an adversary performs battery drain and WiFi sensing attacks just using a
tiny WiFi module which costs less than ten dollars.Comment: 12 page