Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology has the flexibility of implementing a large part of physical layer functions in software. It is one of the major technologies that will provide broadband services to millions of US residences. However, unlike conventional radio whose RF signals are tightly regulated by FCC-certified hardware, the software components of SDR can be easily exploited by hackers to create a wide range of unauthorized waveforms to launch attacks on many security-critical wireless systems. The existing preventive software-based security counter measures are not possible to prevent the myriad of potential software security loopholes and themselves often become targets of the malware.
The objective of this project is to design an effective hardware-based SDR integrity assessment and behavior regulation device named SDR Shield. SDR Shield resides between the vulnerable SDR software and the security-critical SDR hardware to detect any malicious configuration of the RF device and prevent it from being used to attack wireless systems. The SDR Shield uses side channel and communication channel information from different SDR components to detect deviations from expected execution status. SDR shield also includes a regulation circuit to enforce safety-critical properties of SDR operation. A secure update process is developed to maintain SDR shield?s flexibility and its own security. The generality of SDR Shield?s design provides a unified security mechanism for SDR design and hence can ease the burden on FCC or any future SDR design verification institutes in certifying security measures of SDR products.
