Attacks with Steganography in PHY and MAC Layers of 802.15.4 Protocol

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are threatened by numerous attacks. Therefore, security is now becoming an important new path of research and attempts to counter these attacks. However, even if research finds solutions to counter known attacks, we show in this article that there is a threat in wireless sensor networks by using the 802.15.4 protocol. It is possible to hide data in PHY and MAC layers with steganographic techniques. In this article, we explain what steganography is, how we can use it in the layers of 802.15.4 protocol, how an attacker can do an attack and what we can do to detect this kind of threat.