Papers
Topics
Authors
Recent
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash
140 tokens/sec
GPT-4o
7 tokens/sec
Gemini 2.5 Pro Pro
46 tokens/sec
o3 Pro
4 tokens/sec
GPT-4.1 Pro
38 tokens/sec
DeepSeek R1 via Azure Pro
28 tokens/sec
2000 character limit reached

Pilot Spoofing Attack on the Downlink of Cell-Free Massive MIMO: From the Perspective of Adversaries (2403.04435v2)

Published 7 Mar 2024 in cs.IT and math.IT

Abstract: The channel hardening effect is less pronounced in the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) system compared to its cellular counterpart, making it necessary to estimate the downlink effective channel gains to ensure decent performance. However, the downlink training inadvertently creates an opportunity for adversarial nodes to launch pilot spoofing attacks (PSAs). First, we demonstrate that adversarial distributed access points (APs) can severely degrade the achievable downlink rate. They achieve this by estimating their channels to users in the uplink training phase and then precoding and sending the same pilot sequences as those used by legitimate APs during the downlink training phase. Then, the impact of the downlink PSA is investigated by rigorously deriving a closed-form expression of the per-user achievable downlink rate. By employing the min-max criterion to optimize the power allocation coefficients, the maximum per-user achievable rate of downlink transmission is minimized from the perspective of adversarial APs. As an alternative to the downlink PSA, adversarial APs may opt to precode random interference during the downlink data transmission phase in order to disrupt legitimate communications. In this scenario, the achievable downlink rate is derived, and then power optimization algorithms are also developed. We present numerical results to showcase the detrimental impact of the downlink PSA and compare the effects of these two types of attacks.

Definition Search Book Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com
References (23)
  1. H. Q. Ngo, A. Ashikhmin, H. Yang, E. G. Larsson, and T. L. Marzetta, “Cell-free massive MIMO versus small cells,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 16, no. 3, Mar. 2017.
  2. S. Elhoushy, M. Ibrahim, and W. Hamouda, “Cell-free massive MIMO: A survey,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 492–523, Firstquarter 2022.
  3. A. Mukherjee, S. A. A. Fakoorian, J. Huang, and A. L. Swindlehurst, “Principles of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks: A survey,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 1550–1573, Feb. 2014.
  4. W. Trappe, “The challenges facing physical layer security,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 53, no. 6, pp. 16–20, Jun. 2015.
  5. D. Kapetanovic, G. Zheng, and F. Rusek, “Physical layer security for massive MIMO: An overview on passive eavesdropping and active attacks,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 53, no. 6, pp. 21–27, Jun. 2015.
  6. T. M. Hoang, H. Q. Ngo, T. Q. Duong, H. D. Tuan, and A. Marshall, “Cell-free massive MIMO networks: Optimal power control against active eavesdropping,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 10, pp. 4724–4737, Oct. 2018.
  7. W. Xu, C. Yuan, S. Xu, H. Q. Ngo, and W. Xiang, “On pilot spoofing attack in massive MIMO systems: Detection and countermeasure,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 16, pp. 1396–1409, Nov. 2021.
  8. X. Zhou, B. Maham, and A. Hjorungnes, “Pilot contamination for active eavesdropping,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 903–907, Mar. 2012.
  9. X. Ma, X. Lei, X. Zhou, and X. Tang, “Secrecy performance evaluation of scalable cell-free massive MIMO systems: A stochastic geometry approach,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 18, pp. 2826–2841, Apr. 2023.
  10. Y. Jiang and Y. Zou, “Secrecy energy efficiency maximization for multi-user multi-eavesdropper cell-free massive MIMO networks,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 72, no. 5, pp. 6009–6022, May 2023.
  11. D. A. Tubail, M. Alsmadi, and S. Ikki, “Physical layer security in downlink of cell-free massive MIMO with imperfect CSI,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 18, pp. 2945–2960, May 2023.
  12. J. Qiu, K. Xu, X. Xia, Z. Shen, W. Xie, D. Zhang, and M. Wang, “Secure transmission scheme based on fingerprint positioning in cell-free massive MIMO systems,” IEEE Transactions on Signal and Information Processing over Networks, vol. 8, pp. 92–105, Feb. 2022.
  13. X. Zhang, T. Liang, K. An, G. Zheng, and S. Chatzinotas, “Secure transmission in cell-free massive MIMO with RF impairments and low-resolution ADCs/DACs,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 70, no. 9, pp. 8937–8949, Sep. 2021.
  14. S. Elhoushy, M. Ibrahim, and W. Hamouda, “Exploiting RIS for limiting information leakage to active eavesdropper in cell-free massive MIMO,” IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 11, no. 3, Mar. 2022.
  15. X. Gao, Y. Li, W. Cheng, L. Dong, and P. Liu, “Secure optimal precoding for user-centric cell-free massive MIMO system,” IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 31–35, Oct. 2023.
  16. J. K. Tugnait, “Pilot spoofing attack detection and countermeasure,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 5, pp. 2093–2106, Jan. 2018.
  17. Z. Chen and E. Björnson, “Channel hardening and favorable propagation in cell-free massive MIMO with stochastic geometry,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 11, pp. 5205–5219, Nov. 2018.
  18. G. Interdonato, H. Q. Ngo, P. Frenger, and E. G. Larsson, “Downlink training in cell-free massive MIMO: A blessing in disguise,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 5153–5169, Nov. 2019.
  19. N.-P. Nguyen, H. Q. Ngo, T. Q. Duong, H. D. Tuan, and K. Tourki, “Secure massive MIMO with the artificial noise-aided downlink training,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 802–816, Apr. 2018.
  20. M. Medard, “The effect upon channel capacity in wireless communications of perfect and imperfect knowledge of the channel,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 933–946, May 2000.
  21. Q. Zhang, S. Jin, K.-K. Wong, H. Zhu, and M. Matthaiou, “Power scaling of uplink massive MIMO systems with arbitrary-rank channel means,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, vol. 8, no. 5, pp. 966–981, Oct. 2014.
  22. M. S. Lobo, L. Vandenberghe, S. Boyd, and H. Lebret, “Applications of second-order cone programming,” Linear Algebra and its Applications, vol. 284, no. 1, pp. 193–228, 1998, international Linear Algebra Society (ILAS) Symposium on Fast Algorithms for Control, Signals and Image Processing.
  23. A. Mukherjee and A. L. Swindlehurst, “Detecting passive eavesdroppers in the MIMO wiretap channel,” in 2012 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Aug. 2012, pp. 2809–2812.
Citations (2)
View on Semantic Scholar

Summary

We haven't generated a summary for this paper yet.

Ai Sparkles Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com Summarize Now