Entrapment for Wireless Eavesdroppers

Abstract

Due to the open nature of wireless medium, wireless communications are especially vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks. This paper designs a new wireless communication system to deal with eavesdropping attacks. The proposed system can enable a legitimate receiver to get desired messages and meanwhile an eavesdropper to hear “fake” but meaningful messages, thereby confusing the eavesdropper and achieving additional concealment that further protects exchanged messages. Towards this goal, we propose techniques that can conceal exchanged messages by utilizing wireless channel characteristics between the transmitter and the receiver, as well as techniques that can attract an eavesdropper to gradually approach a trap region, where the eavesdropper can get fake messages. We also implement and evaluate the proposed system on top of Universal Software Defined Radio Peripherals (USRPs). Experimental results show that an eavesdropper at a trap location can receive fake information with a bit error rate (BER) that is close to 0, and the transmitter with multiple antennas can successfully deploy a trap area.