Work

Hydra: Attacking OFDM-base Communication System via Metasurfaces Generated Frequency Harmonics

Year: 2024

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: While Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) have been shown to enhance OFDM communication performance, this paper unveils a potential security concern arising from widespread RIS deployment. Malicious actors could exploit vulnerabilities to hijack or deploy rogue RIS, transforming them from communication boosters into attackers. We present a novel attack that disrupts the critical orthogonality property of OFDM subcarriers, severely degrading communication performance. This attack is achieved by manipulating the RIS to generate frequency-shifted reflections/harmonics of the original OFDM signal. We also propose algorithms to simultaneously beamform the multiple RIS-generated frequency-shifted reflections towards selected targets. Extensive experiments conducted in indoor, outdoor, 3D, and office settings demonstrate that Hydra can achieve a 90% throughput reduction in targeted attack scenarios and a 43% throughput reduction in indiscriminate attack scenarios. Furthermore, we validated the effectiveness of our attacks on both the 802.11 protocol and the 5G NR protocol.

Source: Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing And Networking

DOI: 10.1145/3636534.3690670

Authors: Yangfan Zhang, Yaxiong Xie, Zhihao Hui, Hao Jia, Xiaojiang Chen

Institutions: Northwest University, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Wireless Communication Technologies

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China

Awards: G3248479348, G7032864314, G7618020768