PCF?

[Jouni Malinen]

On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 11:08:47AM -0400, Jason Straight wrote:

> Well, hrm, that sucks. With the vulnerability (not really news) posted on 
> slashdot, I'm afraid that script kiddies will soon have simple tools to DoS 
> 802.11, and PCF could be a simple workaround for that.
> 
> http://www.auscert.org.au/

Is there something new about this "new" attack? There are many ways to
DoS 802.11 networks. The auscert page or couple of other links from
slashdot did not really give much details, but I would assume the attack
was to reserve the channel by increasing NAV counters in the stations to
prevent them from transmitting frames.

If I remember correctly, NAV is also used with PCF, so I do not see how
PCF would be a workaround for this particular case. Anyway, there are
many other ways of DoSing the network by using only a small number of
packets, so plugging one problem is certainly not going to make your
network much safer. Maybe it is just that easy enough tools for making
these attacks have not yet been made available.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA