Session hijacking attacks in wireless networks: A review of existing mitigation techniques

Wireless networks are open to various attacks such as Session Hijacking Attack (SHA) with attackers exploiting the vulnerability that is inherent in IEEE 802.11 networks. A SHA is an exploitation of a valid computer session where an attacker takes over a session through acquiring the session identifier (ID) of victim and masquerading as the authorized user. We conducted a review study of the existing session hijacking attacks mitigation techniques. Literature review papers that were published from 2012 to 2016 have been reviewed in this paper. Electronic digital databases were used to identify existing literature studies related to session hijacking attacks mitigation techniques. Various approaches, mostly based on media access control address, have been proposed in the literature for mitigating SHAs, with varied level of impact on network performance resources consumption. The existing SHA techniques are not adequately addressing efficiency and accuracy in terms of mitigating SHA. This paper categorizes mitigation techniques in terms of strengths and weaknesses, the gaps and areas of improvements. The review of existing literature will provide a basis for reasoning about the SHA mitigation techniques in future which will exploit the synergy of two or more SHA mitigation techniques.