Range and Topology Mutation Based Wireless Agility

TL;DR

This work addresses the vulnerability of static wireless infrastructures to reconnaissance, DoS, and eavesdropping by proposing formal AP mutation techniques RNM and RTM. It develops SMT-based RNM and ASP-based RTM formulations to schedule range and topology mutations under coverage, energy, and security constraints, even with incomplete adversary knowledge. The authors demonstrate scalability to networks with thousands of vertices and show substantial reductions in compromised flows with minimal throughput degradation. The work advances moving-target defense in wireless networks by enabling controlled, constraint-driven AP mutation coordinated by a central controller.

Abstract

In this paper, we present formal foundations for two wireless agility techniques: (1) Random Range Mutation (RNM) that allows for periodic changes of AP coverage range randomly, and (2) Ran- dom Topology Mutation (RTM) that allows for random motion and placement of APs in the wireless infrastructure. The goal of these techniques is to proactively defend against targeted attacks (e.g., DoS and eavesdropping) by forcing the wireless clients to change their AP association randomly. We apply Satisfiability Modulo The- ories (SMT) and Answer Set Programming (ASP) based constraint solving methods that allow for optimizing wireless AP mutation while maintaining service requirements including coverage, secu- rity and energy properties under incomplete information about the adversary strategies. Our evaluation validates the feasibility, scalability, and effectiveness of the formal methods based technical approaches.