Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Small: Understanding the Limitations of Wireless Network Security Designs Leveraging Wireless Properties: New Threats and Defenses in Practice

当今的许多无线设备都具有小型，低成本的设计，以满足物联网系统和应用的要求。因此，许多这些设备不能执行加密操作或需要避免此类操作以保存能量（例如，植入式医疗设备）。然而，这些设备通常处理敏感数据。一个重要的研究方向是在考虑正式对手模型的同时，利用无线网络中独特的无线信道属性，创建高效、轻量且安全的此类设备设计。在这个项目中，这个挑战是通过对手驱动的方法来解决的，以提高无线网络的安全性。该项目的新颖之处在于：(i)创建更强大，实用的对手模型，以了解当今利用无线信道属性的物联网系统安全设计的局限性；（ii）设计新的防御策略，以进一步推进最先进的无线网络安全设计。该项目更广泛的意义和重要性在于推进网络安全的最新技术，包括本科生培训机会、公开分发培训材料和开展外展活动。该项目针对现有研究中的三个设计方面创建了新的对手驱动方法：(i)利用信道状态信息作为唯一的网络配置文件，（ii）从无线信道建立秘密，以及（iii）使用无线信道隐藏秘密。具体而言，该项目包括基于系统设计和实际评估的三个研究重点：(i)创建针对基于信道状态信息的用户或位置分析/验证的新攻击，并设计网络对策；（ii）制定新的对手模型和设计无线密钥建立框架，以及（iii）提出使用无线信道的新的对手驱动的安全信息交换框架。该项目包括基于真实无线实验的综合评估，以验证和改进所提出的设计。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Many of today's wireless devices feature small-scale, low-cost designs to align with the requirements of Internet of Things systems and applications. Thus, many of these devices cannot perform cryptographic operations or need to avoid such operations to preserve energy (e.g., implantable medical devices). However, these devices commonly handle sensitive data. An important research direction is to create efficient, lightweight yet secure designs of such devices by leveraging unique wireless channel properties in wireless networks while considering formal adversary models. In this project, this challenge is tackled via an adversary-driven approach to improve wireless network security. The project's novelties are: (i) creating stronger, practical adversary models to understand the limitations of today's security designs of IoT systems leveraging the wireless channel properties and (ii) designing new defense strategies to further advance the state-of-the-art wireless network security designs. The project's broader significance and importance are advancing the state-of-the-art in network security, including undergraduate student training opportunities, openly disseminated training materials, and conducting outreach activities.This project creates new adversary-driven approaches targeting the three design aspects in existing studies: (i) leveraging the channel state information as a unique network profile, (ii) establishing a secret from the wireless channel, and (iii) hiding a secret using the wireless channel. Specifically, the project encompasses three research thrusts based on both system designs and practical evaluations: (i) creating new attacks against channel state information-based user or location profiling/verification and designing network countermeasures; (ii) formulating new adversary models and designing frameworks for wireless secret key establishment, and (iii) proposing new adversary-driven secure information exchange frameworks using the wireless channel. The project involves comprehensive evaluations based on real-world wireless experiments to validate and improve the proposed designs.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.