Rogue wireless beacon device detection

摘要

Techniques are presented for detecting rogue wireless beacon devices. Wireless transmissions from beacon devices are received at a plurality of receiver devices. The wireless transmissions of the beacon devices comprise packets that carry information used for location-based services for mobile wireless devices. Content of one or more fields of the packets transmitted by the beacon devices and received by one or more of the receiver devices is obtained. The content of one or more fields of the packets is analyzed to detect an unauthorized beacon device. The analyzing operation may involve comparing the content of the one or more fields of the packets against a list that contains one or more identifiers for authorized beacon devices. In another form, analyzing may involve analyzing the content of the one or more fields of the packets with pattern information related to advertising content or advertising source.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
at a plurality of receiver devices, receiving wireless transmissions from beacon devices which are transmit-only capable, wherein the wireless transmissions of the beacon devices comprise packets that carry information used for location-based services to mobile wireless devices, wherein the plurality of receiver devices is a plurality of wireless local area network access points capable of receiving and sending transmissions in a wireless local area network frequency band and the beacon devices are configured to transmit in a subset of the wireless local area network frequency band in accordance with a protocol that is different from a protocol used for wireless local area network transmissions; obtaining content of one or more fields of packets transmitted by one of the beacon devices and directly received by at least two of the plurality of receiver devices; and analyzing the content of one or more fields of the packets to detect an unauthorized beacon device.