A Wireless Security Threat Arising from the Contamination of Transmission Pulse Shape

We unveil a new hardware security threat that leaks unauthorized information from a wireless node by subtle manipulation of its pulse-shaping filter. We denote it as Pulse-Shaping Trojan. The leaked information is carried through a small variation to the envelope of the transmitted waveform, created...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dhole, Sameer Raju, Farahnak-Ghazani, Maryam, Nosratinia, Aria
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Covert Channel
Hardware security
Hardware Trojans
Information filters
Pollution measurement
Shape
Supply chains
Transmitters
Wireless communication
Wireless Security
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Summary:We unveil a new hardware security threat that leaks unauthorized information from a wireless node by subtle manipulation of its pulse-shaping filter. We denote it as Pulse-Shaping Trojan. The leaked information is carried through a small variation to the envelope of the transmitted waveform, created by the pulse-shaping filter at the transmitter. The contamination of transmitter hardware can occur at many points in the IC fabrication supply chain; this is a well-recognized and realistic threat. We show that the pulse-shaping Trojan can be designed to have little to no impact on legitimate communication, including in the spectral mask as well as the bit-error rate of legitimate communication. Thus, it will be much more difficult to detect than earlier hardware Trojan threats. We explore the bitrate and bit-error rate of the information leaked by this Trojan, showing that this new threat is capable of effectively exfiltrating unauthorized information.
ISSN:1938-1883
DOI:10.1109/ICC51166.2024.10622168