46 research outputs found
A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends
This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the
inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense
mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the
security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity,
confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive
overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in
view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats
are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing
security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless
network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term
evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in
physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open
communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer.
We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their
counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive
jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the
integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and
cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some
technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are
summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201
Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer
security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of
physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over
a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying
on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without
the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding
strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop
secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the
foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on
information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure
transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna
systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access,
interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment
protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered.
Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along
with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and
stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message
authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with
observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials,
201
Stay Connected, Leave no Trace: Enhancing Security and Privacy in WiFi via Obfuscating Radiometric Fingerprints
The intrinsic hardware imperfection of WiFi chipsets manifests itself in the
transmitted signal, leading to a unique radiometric fingerprint. This
fingerprint can be used as an additional means of authentication to enhance
security. In fact, recent works propose practical fingerprinting solutions that
can be readily implemented in commercial-off-the-shelf devices. In this paper,
we prove analytically and experimentally that these solutions are highly
vulnerable to impersonation attacks. We also demonstrate that such a unique
device-based signature can be abused to violate privacy by tracking the user
device, and, as of today, users do not have any means to prevent such privacy
attacks other than turning off the device.
We propose RF-Veil, a radiometric fingerprinting solution that not only is
robust against impersonation attacks but also protects user privacy by
obfuscating the radiometric fingerprint of the transmitter for non-legitimate
receivers. Specifically, we introduce a randomized pattern of phase errors to
the transmitted signal such that only the intended receiver can extract the
original fingerprint of the transmitter. In a series of experiments and
analyses, we expose the vulnerability of adopting naive randomization to
statistical attacks and introduce countermeasures. Finally, we show the
efficacy of RF-Veil experimentally in protecting user privacy and enhancing
security. More importantly, our proposed solution allows communicating with
other devices, which do not employ RF-Veil.Comment: ACM Sigmetrics 2021 / In Proc. ACM Meas. Anal. Comput. Syst., Vol. 4,
3, Article 44 (December 2020
Novel Physical Layer Authentication Techniques for Secure Wireless Communications
Due to the open nature of radio propagation, information security in wireless communications has been facing more challenges compared to its counterpart in wired networks. Authentication, defined as an important aspect of information security, is the process of verifying the identity of transmitters to prevent against spoofing attacks. Traditionally, secure wireless communications is achieved by relying solely upon higher layer cryptographic mechanisms. However, cryptographic approaches based on complex mathematical calculations are inefficient and vulnerable to various types of attacks. Recently, researchers have shown that the unique properties of wireless channels can be exploited for authentication enhancement by providing additional security protection against spoofing attacks. Motivated by the vulnerability of existing higher-layer security techniques and the security advantages provided by exploring the physical link properties, five novel physical layer authentication techniques to enhance the security performance of wireless systems are proposed. The first technique exploits the inherent properties of CIR to achieve robust channel-based authentication. The second and third techniques utilize a long-range channel predictor and additional multipath delay characteristics, respectively, to enhance the CIR-based authentication. The fourth technique exploits the advantages of AF cooperative relaying to improve traditional channel-based authentication. The last technique employs an embedded confidential signaling link to secure the legitimate transmissions in OFDM systems
Wiometrics: Comparative Performance of Artificial Neural Networks for Wireless Navigation
Radio signals are used broadly as navigation aids, and current and future
terrestrial wireless communication systems have properties that make their
dual-use for this purpose attractive. Sub-6 GHz carrier frequencies enable
widespread coverage for data communication and navigation, but typically offer
smaller bandwidths and limited resolution for precise estimation of geometries,
particularly in environments where propagation channels are diffuse in time
and/or space. Non-parametric methods have been employed with some success for
such scenarios both commercially and in literature, but often with an emphasis
on low-cost hardware and simple models of propagation, or with simulations that
do not fully capture hardware impairments and complex propagation mechanisms.
In this article, we make opportunistic observations of downlink signals
transmitted by commercial cellular networks by using a software-defined radio
and massive antenna array mounted on a passenger vehicle in an urban non
line-of-sight scenario, together with a ground truth reference for vehicle
pose. With these observations as inputs, we employ artificial neural networks
to generate estimates of vehicle location and heading for various artificial
neural network architectures and different representations of the input
observation data, which we call wiometrics, and compare the performance for
navigation. Position accuracy on the order of a few meters, and heading
accuracy of a few degrees, are achieved for the best-performing combinations of
networks and wiometrics. Based on the results of the experiments we draw
conclusions regarding possible future directions for wireless navigation using
statistical methods