Steinmetzer, Daniel ; Yuan, Yimin ; Hollick, Matthias (2018)
Beam-Stealing: Intercepting the Sector Sweep to Launch Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Wireless IEEE 802.11ad Networks.
11th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks. Stockholm, Sweden (18.06.2018-20.06.2018)
doi: 10.1145/3212480.3212499
Conference or Workshop Item, Bibliographie
Abstract
Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication systems provide high data-rates and enable emerging application scenarios, such as 'information showers' for location-based services. Devices are equipped with antenna arrays using dozens of elements to achieve high directionality and thus creating a signal beam that focuses only on a specific area-of-interest. This new communication paradigm of steerable links requires a rethinking of wireless networks and calls for efficient protocols to train the beam alignment among network nodes. The IEEE 802.1 lad standard defines the so-called sector sweep that sweeps through a predefined set of antenna-sectors to find the optimal antenna steerings. Such low-layer protocols lack proper security mechanisms and open unprecedented attack possibilities. Distant attackers might tamper with the beam-training and literally 'steal' the beam from other devices. In this work, we investigate the threat of such beam-stealing attacks that intercept the sector sweep. By injecting forged feedback, we force victims to steer their signals towards the attacker's location. We implement a proof-of-concept on commercial off-the-shelf devices and evaluate the impacts on eavesdropping and acting as a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM). Our practical experiments in typical indoor scenarios reveal that beam-stealing increases the eavesdropping performance by 38% and allow a MITM to relay packets with an average error of only 1%. With these results, we emphasize the threat of beam-training attacks on mm-wave networks and aim to raise the awareness of attack vectors that are emerging with new low-layer amendments in next-generation wireless networks.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item |
|---|---|
| Erschienen: | 2018 |
| Creators: | Steinmetzer, Daniel ; Yuan, Yimin ; Hollick, Matthias |
| Type of entry: | Bibliographie |
| Title: | Beam-Stealing: Intercepting the Sector Sweep to Launch Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Wireless IEEE 802.11ad Networks |
| Language: | English |
| Date: | June 2018 |
| Event Title: | 11th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks |
| Event Location: | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Event Dates: | 18.06.2018-20.06.2018 |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3212480.3212499 |
| URL / URN: | https://doi.org/10.1145/3212480.3212499 |
| Abstract: | Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication systems provide high data-rates and enable emerging application scenarios, such as 'information showers' for location-based services. Devices are equipped with antenna arrays using dozens of elements to achieve high directionality and thus creating a signal beam that focuses only on a specific area-of-interest. This new communication paradigm of steerable links requires a rethinking of wireless networks and calls for efficient protocols to train the beam alignment among network nodes. The IEEE 802.1 lad standard defines the so-called sector sweep that sweeps through a predefined set of antenna-sectors to find the optimal antenna steerings. Such low-layer protocols lack proper security mechanisms and open unprecedented attack possibilities. Distant attackers might tamper with the beam-training and literally 'steal' the beam from other devices. In this work, we investigate the threat of such beam-stealing attacks that intercept the sector sweep. By injecting forged feedback, we force victims to steer their signals towards the attacker's location. We implement a proof-of-concept on commercial off-the-shelf devices and evaluate the impacts on eavesdropping and acting as a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM). Our practical experiments in typical indoor scenarios reveal that beam-stealing increases the eavesdropping performance by 38% and allow a MITM to relay packets with an average error of only 1%. With these results, we emphasize the threat of beam-training attacks on mm-wave networks and aim to raise the awareness of attack vectors that are emerging with new low-layer amendments in next-generation wireless networks. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Solutions; S1 |
| Divisions: | 20 Department of Computer Science 20 Department of Computer Science > Sichere Mobile Netze DFG-Collaborative Research Centres (incl. Transregio) DFG-Collaborative Research Centres (incl. Transregio) > Collaborative Research Centres Profile Areas Profile Areas > Cybersecurity (CYSEC) LOEWE LOEWE > LOEWE-Zentren LOEWE > LOEWE-Zentren > CRISP - Center for Research in Security and Privacy DFG-Collaborative Research Centres (incl. Transregio) > Collaborative Research Centres > CRC 1053: MAKI – Multi-Mechanisms Adaptation for the Future Internet DFG-Collaborative Research Centres (incl. Transregio) > Collaborative Research Centres > CRC 1053: MAKI – Multi-Mechanisms Adaptation for the Future Internet > A: Construction Methodology DFG-Collaborative Research Centres (incl. Transregio) > Collaborative Research Centres > CRC 1053: MAKI – Multi-Mechanisms Adaptation for the Future Internet > A: Construction Methodology > Subproject A3: Migration DFG-Collaborative Research Centres (incl. Transregio) > Collaborative Research Centres > CRC 1119: CROSSING – Cryptography-Based Security Solutions: Enabling Trust in New and Next Generation Computing Environments |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Jul 2018 06:05 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2021 06:11 |
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