An IDS Evaluation-Centric Taxonomy of Wireless Security Attacks

Abstract

Wireless technology has become a very popular alternative to wired technology in recent years. However, wireless communication faces several security threats. Consequently, several security efforts have been exerted to make wireless communication systems invulnerable to attacks, but unfortunately complete attack prevention is not realistically attainable. Thus, the emphasis on detecting intrusions through a second line of defense, in the form of Intrusion Detection System (IDS), is increasing. But the question that arises is what IDS is more suitable for our systems? The answer necessarily should take the IDSs evaluation into account. However, to consider all possible cases and contexts, the classification of wireless attacks seems necessary. Dealing with this challenge, this paper proposes a holistic taxonomy of wireless security attacks from the perspective of the IDS evaluator. The proposed taxonomy includes all relevant dimensions of wireless attacks and helps to extract the attack test cases that are used for managing unbiased evaluations. Finally, we present our benchmark of two popular wireless IDSs.