New Wireless Attack Discovered

IT Observer on July 12, 2005

Phlooding is a newly discovered wireless attack that overloads central authentication servers to cause a denial of service. A group of simultaneous and geographically distributed attacks targets wireless access points with login requests using multiple password combinations. The requests create a flood of authentication requests to the server, which slows down logins and interferes with broader network operations. Phlooding could block broadband VPN or firewall connections that use a common authentication server to verify an incoming user's identity, making it temporarily impossible for employees to access corporate networks. Businesses with multiple locations served by a single authentication server could be particularly vulnerable.