Network Denial of Service

What the technique is

Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users. Network DoS can be performed by exhausting the network bandwidth that services rely on, or by jamming the signal going to or coming from devices. A Network DoS will occur when an adversary is able to jam radio signals (e.g. Wi-Fi, cellular, GPS) around a device to prevent it from communicating. For example, to jam cellular signal, an adversary may use a handheld signal jammer, which jam devices within the jammer’s operational range. Usage of cellular jamming has been documented in several arrests reported in the news.

What MITRE says you would watch

• AN1713

  Defender correlates an Android-specific causal chain where device connectivity degrades or oscillates across one or more radios, applications lose or repeatedly reattempt network access, and the radio or network failure pattern is inconsistent with ordinary mobility, coverage transition, or user-initiated airplane mode behavior. The defender correlates radio state, connectivity framework behavior, application state, network session failures, and location/network-provider degradation to distinguish network denial effects from routine weak-signal conditions.

• AN1714

  Defender correlates an iOS-specific reduced-confidence chain where a managed or supervised device remains active but experiences abrupt loss of network-dependent functionality, repeated session failure, or sustained communication inability without matching configuration changes or ordinary user action. Because direct radio-layer and RF-cause visibility is weaker on iOS, the defender emphasizes device posture, application wake or foreground behavior during service loss, protected network-policy stability, and downstream failure patterns observed in VPN or proxy telemetry.