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.