Detection and analysis of the Chameleon WiFi access point virus…???
This paper analyses and proposes a novel detection strategy for the ‘Chameleon’ WiFi AP-AP virus. Previous research has considered virus construction, likely virus behaviour and propagation methods. The research here describes development of an objective measure of virus success, the impact of product susceptibility, the acceleration of infection and the growth of the physical area covered by the virus. An important conclusion of this investigation is that the connectivity between devices in the victim population is a more significant influence on virus propagation than any other factor. The work then proposes and experimentally verifies the application of a detection method for the virus. This method utilises layer 2 management frame information which can detect the attack while maintaining user privacy and user confidentiality, a key requirement in many security solutions.
The increased availability of WiFi has occurred in spite of well-documented security vulnerabilities , such as denial of service (DoS) and rogue access point (rogue AP)a attacks. The consequence of this is that as demand drives up the availability and use of WiFi, the geographical area that an attack can exploit increases exponentially. It is pertinent to note however that currently the largest barrier to eradicating the threats to users and owners of WiFi networks is system and device misconfiguration, rather than inherent technology flaws . This is revealed in the continued use of open and wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption in home and enterprise environments .
The primary means of defence against rogue APs in many cases is deployment of an IDSb (intrusion detection system), which alerts a human operator to the presence of an attack. The typical IDS method of detecting rogue APs is to track the location of the device, usually using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values. In order to evade this detection, the attacker can attempt to copy the expected RSSI values by either placing the rogue AP within similar radius to the detector as the victim or editing the RSSI output to match the victim’s RSSI values. In this case the legitimate AP and the fraudulent AP are resident in the network at the same time, which provides a mixed set of normal and abnormal traffic for detectors. Separating these two traffic streams then becomes the challenge in rogue AP detection.
Tactics exist for defeating rogue APs which masquerade either AP location or credentials. However, if the legitimate AP is not turned on or not broadcasting, then there is no normal traffic to compare to. Consider an instance where a legitimate AP is taken down and then a false AP comes up, with neither existing at the same time. Due to the prevailing assumption that two devices exist at the same time in a rogue AP attack, the current IDS systems have not been designed to detect this type of attack where the legitimate AP is taken over by the attacker. Hence, it is unlikely that current systems are able to detect this type of attack.
A new form of compromised AP attack has been demonstrated and analysed in , called the ‘Chameleon’ attack, perpetrated by the Chameleon virus. This attack replaces the firmware of an existing AP and masquerades the outward facing credentials. Thus, all visible and physical attributes are copied and there is no significant change in traffic volume or location information. Hence, this attack is considered advanced and difficult to detect, as IDS rogue AP detection methods typically rely on a change in credentials, location or traffic levels. This work provides analysis of the Chameleon virus and demonstrates a method of detecting the propagation of the virus, as it constitutes an advanced rogue AP.