Broadcast media underlying wireless networks enable diverse devices to communicate using shared channels, but also leave them severely exposed to adversaries. Our increased reliance on wireless networks for connectivity to the cyber-infrastructure, and for monitoring our physical infrastructure, has opened the door for sophisticated denial-of-service attacks with potentially devastating effects on our economy and homeland security.
This project pursues a new game-theoretic framework for agile and resilient wireless systems. The framework models the interaction between communicating nodes and adversaries as two-player games, with strategies defined by various protocol choices and cross-layer attacks. A central thesis of this game-theoretic paradigm is that resilient wireless systems need to be highly agile, rapidly mixing strategies to thwart adaptive attackers.
The research methodology underlying this project is threefold. The first component formulates games capturing complex interactions between communicating nodes and adversaries across basic building blocks of wireless systems. The second component concerns optimization problems and equilibria associated with these games. The final component realizes the architecture and solutions in two real-world prototypes: a Linux-based platform for 802.11 networks, and a Software-Defined Radio platform for studying more sophisticated mechanisms.
This project addresses the critical need of protecting our wireless infrastructure from DoS attacks. The research conducted will lead to (a) new game-theoretic analysis of wireless systems quantifying vulnerabilities and worst-case scenarios, and identifying promising methods to thwart such attacks; (b) highly agile cross-layer protocols that are resilient to the most adaptive adversaries; (c) new tools for implementing and evaluating these protocols in real-world systems.
