ERI: Dynamic Wireless Channel Pad: A Lightweight and Effective Security Design Towards Non-cryptographic IoT Confidentiality

不同物联网应用的多样性和新颖性确实提高了我们日常生活的效率和服务质量。但它也引发了一系列安全问题。由于物联网设备可能会收集地理信息，监控用户的隐私活动，并记录客户的生物识别特征，因此当物联网设备与其他设备通信时，如何保护此类敏感数据流量的机密性是关键问题之一。具体地说，由于无线信号的广播性质，物联网设备之间的对话容易受到窃听攻击。该项目旨在加强负担不起加密操作的设备的安全性。特别是，该项目将开发一种轻量级的通道感知安全设计，可以安全地传递信息，适合在资源有限的物联网设备中实施。该方案将是细粒度的，而不是面向协议的。它潜在地兼容所有现有的无线标准(例如，WiFi 6、Zigbee、蓝牙、5G)，并可以适应不同无线网络(例如，蜂窝网络、Wi-Fi网络、卫星通信)的不同要求。此外，开发的方案将在物联网应用之外发挥作用。它可以部署在任何具有无线连接功能的网络上，特别是对于那些缺乏关键管理基础设施的网络。此外，该方案还可以在应用层与密码算法协同工作，提供跨层的安全保障。除此之外，教育活动是该项目不可或缺的一部分，PI计划将该项目的成果分享到他的课程中，以激励更多的学生参与网络安全研究。PI还将积极参与外联活动，以增加社区中不同群体学生的参与、活动和参与度。该项目的目标是提出一种有效且轻量级的安全设计，利用无线环境中的动态信号变化来保护来自物联网设备的敏感网络流量。该方案可以实现信息理论安全，适合在低成本物联网设备中实施，其中有限的能量和电路可以专门用于安全。具体地说，该方案旨在利用通信信道继承的随机性特性来实现敏感数据的机密性，而不需要密钥分发和管理。此外，该项目计划将安全设计应用到相对简单的基带处理程序中，这将产生较少的开销，并且只消耗非常有限的资源量。该项目将重点调查与拟议的通道感知安全设计相关的重要研究问题，使用分析建模、全面模拟和实验评估。特别是，该项目旨在1)确定实施建议方案的实际问题，并开发解决这些问题的技术；2)通过彻底的理论分析和全面的模拟来验证和改进设计；3)构建实用的无线环境，并系统地评估建议设计的有效性、效率和可靠性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The variety and novelty of different IoT applications indeed improve the efficiency and service quality of our daily lives. But it also incurs on a range of security concerns. As IoT devices may gather geographical information, monitor users’ privacy activities, and record clients’ biometric features, one of the critical concerns is how to preserve the confidentiality of such sensitive-data traffic when IoT devices communicate with others. Specifically, due to the broadcast nature of wireless signals, conversations between IoT devices are vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks. This project aims to enforce security in devices that cannot afford cryptography operations. In particular, the project will develop a lightweight channel-aware security design that can deliver information securely and is suitable for implementation in resource-limited IoT devices. The scheme will be fined-grained and not protocol-oriented. It is potentially compatible with all existing wireless standards (e.g., WiFi 6, Zigbee, Bluetooth, 5G) and can accommodate diverse requirements of different wireless networks (e.g. cellular network, Wi-Fi network, satellite communication). In addition, the scheme developed will be useful beyond IoT applications. It can be deployed over any network featured with wireless connectivity, especially for those lacking key management infrastructures. In addition, the scheme can work together with cryptography algorithms on the application layer to provide cross-layer security guarantee. Beyond that, educational activities are an integral part of this project, the PI plans to share the outcomes of this project into his courses to motivate more students to get involved in cybersecurity research. The PI will also actively participate in outreach activities to increase the participation, activities, and engagement of students from diverse groups in the community.The goal of the project is to propose an effective and light-weight security design that takes advantage of dynamic signal variation in wireless context to protect sensitive network traffic emanating from IoT devices. The scheme can achieve information-theoretical security and is suitable for implementation in low-cost IoT devices where limited energy and circuitry can be dedicated for security. Specifically, the proposed scheme aims to exploit the inherited randomness feature of communication channels to achieve confidentiality of sensitive data without key distribution and management. In addition, the project plans to employ security design into relatively simple baseband processing procedures, which incur less overhead and only consume a very limited amount of resources. The project will focus on investigating important research problems associated with the proposed channel-aware security design using analytical modeling, comprehensive simulations, and experimental evaluations. In particular, the project aims to 1) identify practical issues towards the implementation of the proposed scheme and developing techniques that address the issues; 2) validate and refine the design via a thorough theoretical analysis and comprehensive simulations; and 3) build a practical wireless environment and systematically evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability of the proposed design.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.