Power Control as an Effective Method against Low Power Jamming

Wireless networks are built upon a shared medium which makes it easy for an adversary to launch a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Jamming, as a part of DoS attacks at physical layer, is one of the main security considerations within the wireless networks. It holds the potential to totally cripple the network and cause a loss of service and revenue. Jamming attacks can severely interfere with the normal operation of wireless networks and, consequently, mechanisms are needed that can cope with jamming attacks. Jamming techniques vary from simple ones based on the continual transmission of interference signals, to more sophisticated attacks that aim at exploiting vulnerabilities of the particular used protocol. Considering the fact that the jamming is one of most common attacks against military communications, this paper is examining the wireless military network behavior in the presence of such attacks. For this purpose we simulate the effects of the various jamming attacks using OPNET Modeler. Several effective counter-measures against low power jamming are proposed. These measures are based on both transmit power and packet reception power threshold optimization, supported by spread spectrum techniques. The results are considerably improved when all of these mechanisms are combined.