The objective of this research is to develop and analyze new approaches to enhancing security in wireless networks. The approach is to exploit physical layer attributes, in particular the properties of the wireless medium, to significantly enhance user authentication. Openness of wireless and sensor networks makes them vulnerable to spoofing attacks where an unauthorized user masquerades as another legitimate user/device. While conventional cryptographic security mechanisms can be used to foil such attacks, they do not offer a complete solution. This research exploits the distinct channel state information of a legitimate user to authenticate subsequent transmissions from this user.
The intellectual merit of this research includes a thorough consideration of novel efficient approaches to channel estimation for time-varying frequency-selective fading channels under various interference and noise scenarios. The intellectual merit also includes a fairly complete statistical characterization of the estimated channels for use in robust statistical hypothesis testing to ascertain if the estimated physical layer attributes match the previous physical layer attributes from the legitimate user or if they are from a spoofer. Sequential Monte Carlo (bootstrap) approaches in a Bayesian framework are also considered for user authentication.
With respect to broader impacts, this research has the potential to address some of the security challenges that arise from the increasing deployment of wireless networks through enhanced countermeasures. The proposed design methodology for wireless authentication provides a comprehensive framework for enhancing conventional wireless security mechanisms. The project promotes education of students from underrepresented groups and dissemination of research results through teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
