Secure Device Trust Bootstrapping Against Collaborative Signal Modification Attacks

Xiaochan Xue, Shucheng Yu, Min Song

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Bootstrapping security among wireless devices without prior-shared secrets is frequently demanded in emerging wireless and mobile applications. One promising approach for this problem is to utilize in-band physical-layer radio-frequency (RF) signals for authenticated key establishment because of the efficiency and high usability. However, existing in-band authenticated key agreement (AKA) protocols are mostly vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks, which can be launched by modifying the transmitted wireless signals over the air. By annihilating legitimate signals and injecting malicious signals, signal modification attackers are able to completely control the communication channels and spoof victim wireless devices. State-of-the-art (SOTA) techniques addressing such attacks require additional auxiliary hardware or are limited to single attackers. This paper proposes a novel in-band security bootstrapping technique that can thwart colluding signal modification attackers. Different from SOTA solutions, our design is compatible with commodity devices without requiring additional hardware. We achieve this based on the internal randomness of each device that is unpredictable to attackers. Any modification to RF signals will be detected with high probabilities. Extensive security analysis and experimentation on the USRP platform demonstrate the effectiveness of our design under various attack strategies.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationINFOCOM 2023 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications
ISBN (Electronic)9798350334142
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023
Event42nd IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, INFOCOM 2023 - Hybrid, New York City, United States
Duration: 17 May 202320 May 2023

Publication series

NameProceedings - IEEE INFOCOM
Volume2023-May
ISSN (Print)0743-166X

Conference

Conference42nd IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, INFOCOM 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHybrid, New York City
Period17/05/2320/05/23

Keywords

  • Device pairing
  • MitM attack
  • in-band
  • signal cancellation attack

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