Secure Wireless Networks: An Oxymoron?

Farooq Anjum
Telcordia

Monday, January 24, 2:00PM
Burchard 124
Computer Science Department
Stevens Institute of Technology
 

Abstract


Wireless access networks are rapidly becoming a part of the ubiquitous computing environment whether based on 802.11 LANS in enterprise networks and public hot spots or based on wireless ad hoc networks, often times deployed in infrastructure-less environments. In this talk, we will focus on the problem of intrusion detection and recovery in ad-hoc wireless networks.

We consider networks with multiple, mobile intruders. We investigate the placement of the intrusion detection modules in such networks considering a misuse based detection strategy. Our goal is to maximize the detection performance subject to limited availability of computational resources. Optimal solutions to this problem with all static nodes as well as various efficient algorithms that consider mobility are proposed. We will also consider variations such as failed detectors and discuss strategies to combat such problems. Combining theories of hypothesis testing and approximation algorithms, we develop a framework to counter different threats while minimizing the resource consumption. We provide computationally simple optimal decision rules to be followed by the nodes executing the intrusion detection software (IDS) modules. Simulations are used to illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithms. We conclude by discussing how the current work can be extended.

(Joint work with D. Subhadrabandhu and S. Sarkar)