Security Risks in the Wireless Environment

This chapter outlines potential security risks in the wireless environment and presents concerns of the wireless security mechanisms. It summarizes some key attack types such as eavesdropping, data altering, overloading and some less typical threats such as RF jammers and Electro‐Magnetic Pulses (EMPs). The chapter also presents some important impacts of wireless security on the utilities and applications, and discusses key protection methods as guidelines for network operators, device manufacturers, smartcard providers, app developers and users. Some of the threats in the wireless environment include cyber‐attacks, eavesdropping, data altering, overloading, destruction, radio jammers and other RF attacks, EMPs and highly specialized techniques focusing on the component level such as electron microscope and power consumption analysis. The protection methods include various defence techniques by the operators, service providers and end‐users. Up‐to‐date guidelines are constantly needed by network operators, device manufacturers, smartcard providers, financial institutes and app developers, and the end‐users.