Latest DOS Attacks Endanger Mobile Data Networks

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» 09 June 2009

During a session at the Cyber Infrastructure Protection Conference at the City College of New York last Thursday, a senior security researcher alerted than an evolved type of DOS (Denial of Service) attack is currently jeopardizing mobile data network security.

The DOS attack is a hacking method used to force a computer resource—i.e., a website—to become inaccessible to its target users—i.e., regular visitors of a website. One common DOS technique involves oversupplying the targeted computer system or network with outside communications requests so that it cannot process real information traffic, or it is accessed so sluggishly that it might as well have been unavailable.

Networking research Vice-President Krishan Sabnani of Bell Labs have uncovered an intrinsic vulnerability in mobile IP protocol that enables the launch of cyber attacks that are fairly simple to prepare but incredibly difficult to prevent or expose. The mobile IP DOS attacks, like the ones described above, would typically take the shape of, say, a inundated method of assault that requires constant setup and release of connections.

Such a digital onslaught is comparable with the SYN Flood attacks that have forever plagued fixed-line (that is, wired) Internet connections. One other attack type depends on thwarting a mobile device\'s access to its dormant mode, which results in faster battery drainage.

Sabnani enumerated a multitude of possible attack combinations against mobile data networks, which includes the following scenarios:

Prevent the mobile device from going into sleep mode through the delivery of packets.

Create congestion at radio network controllers via the reestablishment of connections after they\'ve been released, which results in problems for actual subscribers to the ISP.

Infect computers with malware, which causes connected devices to produce excessive port scanning.

According to Sabnani, the monitoring of mobile networks with terminal battery life and limited bandwidth against DOS attacks is of the utmost importance right now. Then again, the resources required to dispatch such assaults are usually out of all proportion to the damage and compromises they may inflict, so that could also pose as a problem against thwarting these virtual acts of terrorism. For instance, one cable modem user with 500kbps upload capacity has the ability to assail over a million users at the same time.

At this time, Bell Labs is applying Sabnani's theories and studies on DOS hazards to create special security devices specifically engineered for mobile network protocols and architecture.

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