NeTS-ProWIN: Fingerprints in the Ether: Exploiting the Radio Channel to Enhance Wireless Security

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The securing of wireless systems has traditionally employed cryptographic protocols that are modifications of conventional wired security mechanisms. However, the wireless environment enables new forms of intrusion that render such techniques inadequate. At the same time, the properties of the wireless medium comprise a unique source of domain-specific information. This project exploits that information to complement and enhance traditional security mechanisms. The project utilizes the unique space, time and frequency characteristics of the physical (PHY) layer, in combination with traditional higher layer techniques, to significantly enhance authentication and confidentiality. This cross-layer research is investigating fundamentally new approaches that utilize the statistical correlation properties associated with multipath propagation in designing new protocols. The project work relies on an integration of analysis, simulation and experiment by an interdisciplinary team whose expertise includes RF propagation, PHY-layer communications, statistical analysis, and wireless security and cryptographic protocols. The growing use of wireless communications by consumers, businesses, and governments can be undermined by security attacks that exploit the medium itself. Strengthening the responses to this threat serves all of society. The goals of this project are to uncover how authentication and confidentiality can be achieved using the PHY-layer, under what situations these objectives are achievable, and how much benefit it can add to conventional security mechanisms. This interdisciplinary research and education effort will include wide dissemination of its results in academic and industrial forums spanning both wireless communications and security.