Combating Wireless LAN MAC-layer Address Spoofing with Fingerprinting Methods

Abstract

Unwanted use of wireless networks has become a well-known problem in recent years. One attempt to solve this problem is the use of access control lists, which are associated with accredited MAC addresses. But since MAC addresses can be spoofed very easily, improved mechanisms are needed to attest the uniqueness of a dedicated wireless station. Today, all known approaches are based on the idea to generate NIC-specific profiles derived from invariant NIC-characteristics. In doing so, unique features are either extracted from RF-components or from the timing behavior of the MAC-chip. To give a review and to classify all proposed approaches, we start with a short introduction to all underlying ideas and will conclude with a comparison of these mechanisms.