RINGS: Building Next Generation Resilient Wireless Systems from Unsecure Hardware

下一代（NextG）蜂窝无线网络（5G及更高版本）的设计、制造和部署越来越依赖于专业化的高性能基带和射频（RF）硬件组件，这些组件通常由地球仪的第三方提供。使用这些来自不同制造商的关键硬件组件会给关键网络基础设施带来可怕的安全漏洞。该项目的主要目标是开发方法，从潜在的不安全硬件组件构建弹性和安全的NextG无线系统。该项目侧重于一类特别重要的攻击，称为硬件木马，其中第三方提供的硬件组件被恶意更改，以从网络节点（如蜂窝基站）内发起攻击。一旦被触发，这些攻击可以降低或禁用服务，传输信号破坏其他节点，或窥探或泄漏敏感数据。该项目结合了硬件安全和通信理论的理论，以检测和减轻这些攻击在四个密切相关的推力。Thrust 1开发了计算效率高的方法来检测基带和RF中是否存在硬件木马。Thrust 2提供了严格的界限来估计未检测到的硬件攻击的能力，并实现了对硬件验证和潜在吞吐量下降的功率和计算的关键优化。Thrust 3将这些方法扩展到网络设置，包括干扰和多用户攻击。Thrust 4开发了一个新颖而强大的评估平台，用于在高吞吐量毫米波软件定义无线电中的基带和RF中试验硬件安全方法。PI将通过研讨会向更广泛的社区传播结果和数据。此外，PI在纽约大学教授安全和无线课程，并将研究和实验整合到他们的课程和课程项目中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The design, manufacturing, and deployment of next generation (NextG) cellular wireless networks (5G and beyond) is increasingly relying on specialized, high-performance baseband and radio frequency (RF) hardware components, often supplied by third parties across the globe. The use of these critical of hardware components sourced from diverse manufacturers introduces formidable security vulnerabilities into critical network infrastructure. The broad goal of this project is to develop methods to build resilient and secure NextG wireless systems from potentially unsecure hardware components. This project focuses on a particularly important class of attacks called hardware Trojans, where hardware components supplied by a third party are maliciously altered to launch an attack from within a network node, such as a cellular base station. Once triggered, these attacks can degrade or disable service, transmit signals to disrupt other nodes, or snoop or leak sensitive data.The project combines theory in hardware security and communications theory to detect and mitigate these attacks in four closely related thrusts. Thrust 1 develops computationally efficient methods to detect the presence of hardware Trojans in both the baseband and RF. Thrust 2 provides rigorous bounds to estimate the capacity of undetected hardware attacks and enables a critical optimization of the power and computation on hardware verification and potential throughput degradation. Thrust 3 extends these methods to network settings, including jamming and multi-user attacks. Thrust 4 develops a novel and powerful evaluation platform to experiment with hardware security methods in both the baseband and RF in a high throughput millimeter wave software defined radio.The PIs will disseminate the results and data to the wider community through workshops. In addition, the PIs teach security and wireless classes at NYU and will integrate the research and experiments in their classes and class projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.