Man-in-the-Middle Attack Detection and Localization Based on Cross-Layer Location Consistency

• Main Authors: Yaoqi Yang, Xianglin Wei, Renhui Xu, Laixian Peng, Lei Zhang, Lin Ge
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2020-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: Millimeter-wave communication; man-in-the-middle attack; detection; cross-layer
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9106317/

As a promising communication paradigm in the 5G era, IEEE 802.11ad 60GHz mmWave communication has many desirable properties, including high bandwidth, narrow beam, high transmission quality, and low mutual-interference. However, recently revealed Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack can endanger the security and privacy of mmWave communication systems. Existing MITM attack detection solutions, established on ideal assumptions, neglect the fact that a MITM attacker can change its transmitting power and make it hard to be detected. In this backdrop, a cross-layer location consistency-based MITM detection and localization algorithm is introduced in this paper. Firstly, we propose a positioning algorithm based on the information of the physical layer with a directional antenna sector propagation model; secondly, based on the information at the MAC layer, we propose a MITM attack detection scheme and a sector consistency check algorithm; thirdly, a MITM attack detection and localization algorithm using cross-layer information is proposed. Simulation results have shown that the proposed algorithm can effectively detect the MITM attack and its positioning error is less than 0.53m in typical parameter settings.