On Securing MAC Layer Broadcast Signals Against Covert Channel Exploitation in 5G, 6G & Beyond
| Autor: | Soosahabi, Reza, Bayoumi, Magdy |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: | |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| Popis: | In this work, we propose a novel framework to identify and mitigate a recently disclosed covert channel scheme exploiting unprotected broadcast messages in cellular MAC layer protocols. Examples of covert channel are used in data exfiltration, remote command-and-control (CnC) and espionage. Responsibly disclosed to GSMA (CVD-2021-0045), the SPARROW covert channel scheme exploits the downlink power of LTE/5G base-stations that broadcast contention resolution identity (CRI) from any anonymous device according to the 3GPP standards. Thus, the SPARROW devices can covertly relay short messages across long-distance which can be potentially harmful to critical infrastructure. The SPARROW schemes can also complement the solutions for long-range M2M applications. This work investigates the security vs. performance trade-off in CRI-based contention resolution mechanisms. Then it offers a rigorously designed method to randomly obfuscate CRI broadcast in future 5G/6G standards. Compared to CRI length reduction, the proposed method achieves considerable protection against SPARROW exploitation with less impact on the random-access performance as shown in the numerical results. Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, "This is a significantly revised version of the earlier submission arXiv:2108.12161 in 2021. This work will be published in IEEE Future Networks World Forum 2022 conference proceedings. The copy right will be transferred to IEEE without notice upon the publication." |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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