Annual Computer Security Applications Conference 2015

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IOT: Using Channel State Information for Tamper Detection in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly used for critical applications and securing the IoT has become a major concern. Among other issues it is important to ensure that tampering with IoT devices is detected. Many IoT devices use WiFi for communication and Channel State Information (CSI) based tamper detection is a valid option. Each 802.11n WiFi frame contains a preamble allows a receiver to estimate the impact of the wireless channel, the transmitter and the receiver on the signal. The estimation result - the CSI - is used by a receiver to extract the transmitted information. However, as the CSI depends on the communication environment and the transmitter hardware, it can be used as well for security purposes. If an attacker tampers with a transmitter it will have an effect on the CSI measured at a receiver. Unfortunately not only tamper events lead to CSI fluctuations; movement of people in the communication environment has an impact too. We propose to analyse CSI values of a transmission simultaneously at multiple receivers to improve distinction of tamper and movement events. A moving person has an impact on some but not all communication links between transmitter and the receivers. A temper event impacts on all links between transmitter and the receivers. The paper describes the necessary algorithms for the proposed tamper detection method. In particular we analyse the tamper detection capability in practical deployments with varying intensity of people movement. In our experiments the proposed system deployed in a busy office environment was capable to detect 53% of tamper events (TPR = 53%) while creating zero false alarms (FPR = 0%).

Author(s):

Ibrahim Bagci    
Lancaster University
United Kingdom

Utz Roedig    
Lancaster University
United Kingdom

Ivan Martinovic    
University of Oxford
United Kingdom

Matthias Schulz    
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Germany

Matthias Hollick    
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Germany

 

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