WiFire: a firewall for wireless networks

Abstract

Firewalls are extremely effective at enforcing security policies in wired networks. Perhaps surprisingly, firewalls are entirely nonexistent in the wireless domain. Yet, the need to selectively control and block radio communication is particularly high in a broadcast environment since any node may receive and send packets. In this demo, we present WiFire, a system that brings the firewall concept to wireless networks. First, WiFire detects and analyzes packets during their transmission, checking their content against a set of rules. It then relies on reactive jamming techniques to selectively block undesired communication. We show the feasibility and performance of WiFire, which is implemented on the USRP2 software-defined radio platform, in several scenarios with IEEE 802.15.4 radios. WiFire is able to classify and effectively block undesired communication without interfering with desired communication.