Performance Sensitivities of Wireless Mesh Networks Under Path-Based DoS Attacks

This paper examines the performance of wireless mesh networks (WMNs) under the impact of path-based denial of service (DoS) attacks. Specifically, we study the factors that are conducive to path-based DoS attacks, while focusing external interferences, medium errors, and physical diversity. We setup a wireless mesh testbed and configure a set of experiments to gather measurements and assess the effects of different factors. We find that the impact of external interferences and medium errors on network performance is exacerbated when path-based DoS attacks are carried out. Another interesting observation is that a far attacker can lead to an increased performance degradation than a close-by attacker due to physical diversity. Further, we discuss a simple strategy to counter path-based DoS attacks, which has potential for reducing the impact of the attack significantly.