Abstract
Most wireless systems lack the ability to reliably identify clients without employing complicated cryptographic tools. This introduces a significant threat to the security of wireless networks, as the wireless channel is a broadcast medium, i.e., intruders can access wireless networks without a physical connection. One serious consequence is that spoofing attacks (or masquerading attacks), where a malicious device claims to be a specific client by spoofing its MAC address, becomes possible. Spoofing attacks can seriously degrade network performance and facilitate many forms of security weakness.
Portions of the material have appeared previously in: L. Xiao, L. Greenstein, N. Mandayam, and W. Trappe, “Using the physical layer for wireless authentication under time-variant channels,” IEEE Transactions onWireless Communications, vol. 7, no. 7, 2008© IEEE 2008 and “A Physical-Layer Technique to Enhance Authentication for Mobile Terminals,” in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2008© IEEE 2008.
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Xiao, L., Greenstein, L., Mandayam, N., Trappe, W. (2009). Fingerprints in the Ether: Channel-Based Authentication. In: Liu, R., Trappe, W. (eds) Securing Wireless Communications at the Physical Layer. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1385-2_13
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