New flaw takes Wi-Fi off the air
A newly-discovered vulnerability in the 802.11 wireless standard allows attackers to jam wireless networks within a radius of one kilometre using off-the-shelf equipment.
Affecting various hardware implementations of the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking standard - including widely used 802.11b devices - the flaw was found in the collision avoidance routines used to prevent multiple devices from transmitting at the same moment.
"When under attack, the device behaves as if the channel is always busy, preventing the transmission of any data over the wireless network," a security advisory released by AusCERT reads.
The weakness allows miscreants to take down networks within five seconds, according to researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology's Information Security Research Centre (ISRC), which discovered the vulnerability.
