Cyber Analysis Emulation Platform for Wireless Communication Network Protocols

Wireless networking and mobile communications is increasing around the world and in all sectors of our lives. With increasing use, the density and complexity of the systems increase with more base stations and advanced protocols to enable higher data throughputs. The security of data transported over the wireless networks must also evolve with the advances in technologies enabling the more capable wireless networks. However, means for analysis of the effectiveness of security approaches and implementations used on wireless networks are lacking. More specifically a capability to analyze the lower-layer protocols (i.e., Link and Physical Layers) is a major challenge. An analysis approach that incorporates protocol implementations without the need for RF emissions is necessary. In this research paper several emulation tools and custom extensions that enable an analysis platform to perform cyber security analysis of lower-layer wireless networks is presented. A use case of a published exploit in the 802.11 (i.e., WiFi) protocol family is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the described emulation platform.