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Physical Layer Attacks with Malicious Full-Duplex Relays and Their Defense Strategies

Zhao, Xingya
http://orcid.org/0009-0006-4185-1735
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721403500633929

Abstract Details

2024, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Computer Science and Engineering.
The widespread adoption of wireless communication technologies underscores the need to ensure security in these systems. Within wireless communications, channel measurement plays a critical role in enabling successful communication. Additionally, the rapid uncorrelation over space of wireless channel makes it an ideal source for various physical layer security applications, such as secret key generation and source authentication protocols. However, existing research has demonstrated that a malicious full-duplex relay, which receives and retransmits signals almost simultaneously at the same frequency band, can manipulate the receivers' channel estimations by actively relaying the pilot signals used for channel measurement. This thesis aims to investigate novel attacks involving malicious full-duplex relays and explore defenses against these attacks. The thesis focuses on two specific works. The first work concentrates on defending against malicious amplify-and-forward full-duplex relays. To address the emerging threat posed by full-duplex relay attackers to physical-layer wireless security protocols, we propose RelayShield, a system designed to detect such malicious relays and recover the channels manipulated by them. Unlike previous approaches that rely on previously-collected signature channels, RelayShield analyzes signal path information derived from input channels to detect relays and recover channels. RelayShield achieves over 95% detection accuracy with channels collected in two typical indoor environments. The recovered channels can support a wide range of applications. The second work focuses on the vulnerabilities of the channel estimation process in downlink MU-MIMO transmissions. While MU-MIMO technology offers significant benefits, it also opens avenues for potential attacks. In this work, we propose an active eavesdropping attack targeting downlink MU-MIMO transmissions. The attack consists of two phases. First, the attacker sends a forged pilot packet to the victims. After that, the access point transmits streams intended for victims to the attacker, who operates in full-duplex mode and relays the streams to the victims. Compared to existing eavesdropping attacks targeting downlink MU-MIMO transmissions, our proposed attack requires less prior knowledge and coordination from attackers and maximizes eavesdropping opportunities. We evaluate the proposed attack in various settings and prove its effectiveness with multiple victims and partial channel knowledge. Additionally, we explore the use of physical-layer features to detect our proposed attack. Future work about how this attack model can be extended to compromise uplink MU-MIMO transmissions, and how the attackers can potentially adjust their attack strategies to bypass some countermeasures is also discussed.
Kannan Athreya (Advisor)
Srinivasan Parthasarathy (Committee Member)
Zhiqiang Lin (Committee Member)
Jennifer Bogner (Committee Member)
116 p.
Computer Science
wireless network, physical layer security

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Zhao, X. (2024). Physical Layer Attacks with Malicious Full-Duplex Relays and Their Defense Strategies [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721403500633929

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Zhao, Xingya. Physical Layer Attacks with Malicious Full-Duplex Relays and Their Defense Strategies. 2024. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721403500633929.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Zhao, Xingya. "Physical Layer Attacks with Malicious Full-Duplex Relays and Their Defense Strategies." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1721403500633929

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1721403500633929
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© 2024, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.