DATE: Thursday, October 30, 2003
TIME: Noon - 1 pm
PLACE: Hamerschag Hall D-210
SPEAKER:
José
Carlos Brustoloni
University of Pittsburgh
TITLE:
Blocking Theft of Service in Wireless Hotspots
ABSTRACT:
The SSL-secured user authentication scheme typically employed in commercial
wireless hotspots has the virtues of being intuitive and not requiring
special client software or hardware. Unfortunately, it is insecure. We
describe two attacks, session hijacking and freeloading, that allow an
attacker to use an authenticated user's session. The second attack is
novel and does not require special tools. Surprisingly, it is strengthened
by the (widely recommended) use of personal firewalls. We propose and
evaluate novel defenses against these attacks, session id checking and
MAC sequence number tracking, both of which are transparent to clients
and do not require changes in client computers. Our experiments demonstrate
that (1) commercial hotspots and academic Wi-Fi networks are vulnerable
to session hijacking and freeloading, and (2) session ID checking and
MAC sequence number tracking are effective against these attacks and have
little overhead.
BIO:
José Brustoloni obtained his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from
Carnegie Mellon University, after getting an M.S. degree in Electrical
Engineering from University of São Paulo, Brazil, and a B.E. degree
in Electronics Engineering from Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica,
Brazil.
José joined the University of Pittsburgh's faculty as an Assistant Professor in August of 2002. Previously, he was a researcher at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies. His research interests include computer networks, operating systems, security, quality of service, and embedded systems.
SDI / LCS Seminar Questions?
Karen Lindenfelser, 86716, or visit www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/