Effects of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Battery Exhaustion Attacks on Mobile Devices

This paper provides insight into the ramifications of battery exhaustion Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on battery-powered mobile devices. Several IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.15.1 Bluetooth, and blended attacks are studied to understand their effects on device battery lifetimes. In the worst case, DoS attacks against mobile devices were found to accelerate battery depletion as much as 18.5%. Also presented in this work is a hybrid Intrusion Detection System (IDS) designed to thwart this form of malicious activity; Multi-Vector Portable Intrusion Detection System (MVP-IDS). MVP-IDS combines host-based device instantaneous current (IC) monitoring with attack traffic signaturing modules.