Authentication – Based Medium Access Control to Prevent Protocol Jamming: A-MAC

Abstract

Recently, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is used by enterprises, government, and the military, as well as small office and home offices. Although it is convenient, it has inherent security weaknesses due to wireless characteristics. For this reason, security-sensitive groups are still unwilling to use WLAN. There are several types of attacks to degrade the wireless network throughput using security weakness, especially Protocol Jamming Attacks are critical. These attacks consume little energy and can be easily implemented. In this paper, we introduce Authentication-based Medium Access Control (A-MAC) to prevent Virtual Carrier Sense (VCS) Jamming Attack and De-authentication / Disassociation Jamming Attack that are typical Protocol Jamming Attacks in 802.11 based wireless systems. The proposed scheme can authenticate frames using Universal Hashing Message Authentication Codes (UMAC-32) and Hidden Sequence Number (SN). A-MAC frequently changes the key and SN using shift row and shift column processes to overcome the weakness of short 32 bits hashing codes. A-MAC can achieve integrity, authentication, and anti-replay attack security features. It can prevent Protocol Jamming Attacks that degrade wireless network throughput. Our simulation shows A-MAC can sustain throughput under Protocol Jamming Attacks.