Battery Drain using WiFi Beacons
Akhil Raj, Sriram Sankaran · 2023
Two attacks on WiFi beacons are demonstrated in this work, which can significantly drain the battery life of wireless devices. Altering of the TIM which is a beacon parameter as an exploit is also explored in theory in this paper. The first method exploits a natural network property using beacons, while the second extends the first method by targeting a single device with multiple beacons. The manipulation of a specific sub-information element in the beacon frame is also explored for battery-draining purposes. An external WiFi adapter was used to broadcast beacon frames generated with the Scapy tool. It was found that even the latest WiFi security standard, WPA3 (WiFi Protected Access), cannot protect devices from these attacks. To evaluate the effectiveness of the attack, multiple tests were conducted on a Windows laptop, with the results and analysis presented in this paper. This research highlights the need for further improvements in WiFi beacon security to protect devices from battery-draining attacks.