Range and Topology Mutation Based Wireless Agility

Abstract

Wireless is a key component in most of today's network infrastructures. Yet, it is highly susceptible to network attacks because wireless communication and infrastructure, such as Access Point(AP) and clients, can be easily discovered and targeted. Particularly,the static nature of the wireless AP topology and its configuration offers a significant advantage to adversaries to identify network targets and plan devastating attacks such as denial of service or eavesdropping. This is critically important in hostile military environment in which soldiers depend on wireless infrastructure for communication and coordination. In this paper, we present formal foundations for two wireless agility techniques: (1) Random Range Mutation (RNM) that allows for periodic changes of AP coverage range randomly, and (2) Random Topology Mutation (RTM) that allows for random motion and placement of APs in the wireless infrastructure. The goal of these techniques is to proactively defend against targeted attacks (e.g.,DoS and eavesdropping) by forcing the wireless clients to change their AP association randomly. We apply Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) and Answer Set Programming (ASP) based constraint solving methods that allow for optimizing wireless AP mutation while maintaining service requirements including coverage, security and energy properties under incomplete information about the adversary strategies. Our evaluation validates the feasibility,scalability, and effectiveness of the formal methods based technical approaches.