Vulnerability Analysis and Countermeasures for WiFi-based Location Services and Applications

Wireless LANs, or WiFi, are very common in any household or business today. Their wireless nature allows mobility and convenience for the user and that opens up a lot of new possibilities in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. One application that makes use of wireless LANs is positioning, which can be used in areas where Global Positioning Systems may have trouble functioning or not at all. However, a drawback of using wireless communication is that it is susceptible to eavesdropping and jamming. Once the wireless signal is jammed, an attacker can set up fake access points on different channels or frequencies to impersonate a legitimate access point. In this paper, this attack is performed specifically to trick WiFibased location services that are becoming very popular nowadays, especially for mobile devices. Our paper shows that the attack works on Skyhook, Google, Apple and Microsoft location services, four of the major location service providers, and works on dualband hardware. We also present some potential countermeasures to such an attack.