Wireless Local Area Networks present several vulnerabilities that are exploited, and as a result, numerous attacks have been developed and used against them. Although countermeasures to detect and eliminate such threats have been created throughout the years, few methods exist to prevent the attacks. IEEE 802.11 covert channels could be considered a candidate to prevent Wi-Fi attacks since they allow secret communication between the client station and the access point without establishing an association. They can be implemented in frames that attackers do not target. This paper presents a new covert channel that prevents Wi-Fi attacks. We also describe metrics, and discuss the performance results of the proposed solution. We show that the new protocol is able to achieve high efficiency of operation.

The paper presents an analysis of BSS coloring scheme defined in IEEE 802.11ax standard. The efficiency of dense networks for different scenarios was analyzed and compared. This analysis covers various topologies and work configurations through the use of multiple parameters of the PHY and MAC layers. A positive impact of the coloring mechanism on the QoS was observed. The study also analyzed the impact of the RTS/CTS mechanism on the obtained network performance and adequate prioritization of various traffic classes. It was shown that the proper selection of the coloring mechanism parameters in the IEEE 802.11ax standard has a strong impact on QoS and the performance of dense networks.