The objective of this research is to develop a localization system capable of localizing an adversary that is actively trying to disguise its location in a wireless network by distorting its signal features. The approach is a proactive, cross-layer localization design that incorporates attack traceback, cross-layer traffic manipulation, and physical layer position estimation. The attack traceback aspect focuses on narrowing down an adversary?s location to the coverage area of a couple of access points. The traffic manipulation aspect will develop trapping techniques to force or lure the adversary to exhibit their true location-related signal features. Leveraging these true location-related signal features, the physical layer position estimation aspect will develop proactive and robust localization techniques to accurately position the adversary.
Intellectual Merit: The proposed project will help to establish accountability in wireless networks and will result in the development of key attack countermeasures. It is the first to address many technical challenges in localization and traceback. This project can also enhance the security of systems where location information is used to restrict access to critical resources. Furthermore, the proposed research results can be used to improve the accuracy of localization systems in harsh communication environments that severely distort the characteristics of emitted signals from legitimate users.
Broader Impact: The proposed research will foster the integration of research and education by fortifying the existing curriculum with the project?s research results. The outreach component of the project will disseminate research results and pedagogical materials via education and industry outreach programs.
The wide-spread deployment of wireless networks and the increased availability of attack tools on the Web have enabled adversaries—from "script kiddies" to experienced hackers—to launch sophisticated network attacks against remote critical infrastructures with relative ease and anonymity. To institute accountability and aid in the prosecution of culprits responsible for such cybercrime, a technical solution for tracing back the true source(s) of network attacks is needed. The vast majority of existing approaches for attack traceback was designed for tracing back to the edge routers in wired networks, and is ineffective for wireless networks since the attacker can be anywhere in the unified coverage area of all wireless access points (APs) in a subnet. To be truly effective as an attack deterrent, a traceback scheme for a wireless network must be combined with accurate localization techniques to estimate the adversary’s physical location. The objective of this research is to develop a localization system capable of localizing an adversary that is actively trying to disguise its location in a wireless network by distorting its location-revealing signal features. In this project, we first thoroughly analyzed the impact of active disguise on the effectiveness of current localization systems and have discovered that these current systems have degraded localization accuracy and may not even know that they are under attack. Thus, we designed a novel proactive localization approach that leverages upper layer communication protocols to lure the attacker to modify his communication behaviors according to our desired pattern. This communication pattern provides our localization system with a rich body of location-revealing information and hence can be integrated with our robust physical layer location computation algorithms to detect location spoofing attack and compute the true location of the attacker. Intellectual Merit This project establishes accountability in wireless networks and serves as an invaluable tool for attack deterrent, which is critical for ensuring the security of critical infrastructures. This project is the first to address many technical challenges and demonstrate the feasibility for localization and traceback of an attacker that is actively disguising its location. This project also improves the accuracy of localization systems in harsh communication environments that severely distort the characteristics of emitted signals from legitimate users. Broader impacts This project improves the state-of-art on localization and network security research. The results of this project have been presented to a wide audience, including undergraduate and graduate students, as well as at conferences and symposia. The research result provides important security mechanisms that can protect critical infrastructures in all aspects of the society, such as telecommunications, banking and finance, energy, transportation, and essential government services.
