Title
On passive inference attacks against physical-layer key extraction?
Abstract
Physical-layer key extraction techniques attempt to derive a shared symmetric cryptographic key between two wireless devices based on the principle of channel reciprocity, which states that the signal envelope between two communicating devices is strongly correlated. A key security assumption made in previous literature is that the signal envelope observed by an adversary located greater than a half-wavelength away is uncorrelated with that shared between the two communicating devices; however, this assumption has yet to be rigorously evaluated in previous work on physical-layer key extraction. In this paper, we present an experimental analysis that examines the relationship between the channel measurements used to extract a symmetric key between two devices and those observed by one or more distantly located passive adversaries. We find that, contrary to previous assumptions, there does exist a strong correlation in measurements observed by adversaries located significantly greater than a half-wavelength away from two communicating wireless devices. Further, we provide initial results that show the extent to which the adversary is able to leverage such correlations to infer portions of the key extracted between two devices using previously published physical-layer key extraction techniques.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1145/1972551.1972559
EUROSEC
Keywords
Field
DocType
wireless device,previous assumption,physical-layer key extraction,shared symmetric cryptographic key,key security assumption,symmetric key,signal envelope,previous literature,previous work,passive inference attack,physical-layer key extraction technique,physical layer,experimental analysis,wireless network,wireless networking
Symmetric-key algorithm,Wireless network,Internet privacy,Wireless,Computer science,Inference,Computer security,Communication channel,Physical layer,Adversary,Key (cryptography)
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
10
0.58
7
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Matthew Edman11635.95
Aggelos Kiayias24266238.75
Bülent Yener3107594.51