Patent ID: 8139521

Claim:
A wireless communications network comprising: at least one access point having a respective authentication token and address associated therewith; a plurality of wireless nodes for communicating with said at least one access point, each wireless node having a respective authentication token and address associated therewith; said at least one access point and said plurality of wireless nodes communicating using packets, each packet comprising an authentication token, an origination address and a destination address; and during the communicating, said at least one access point reading and storing the respective authentication tokens and origination addresses for each received packet that was wirelessly transmitted from said plurality of wireless nodes for defining an allowed wireless node list; during the communicating, each wireless node reading and storing the respective authentication tokens and origination addresses for each received packet that was wirelessly transmitted from said at least one access point for defining an allowed access point list; said at least one access point monitoring packets being wirelessly transmitted within the wireless communications network by reading the originating addresses of each transmitted packet, and when a read origination address matches the address of said at least one access point, and said at least one access point did not transmit the packet, then a determination is made by said at least one access point that an attacker is impersonating said at least one access point; and said at least one access point transmits a warning message by increasing its transmits power to drown out transmission by the attacker.