Physical Layer Challenge-Response Authentication between Ambient Backscatter Devices

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yifan, Dang, Yongchao, Kaveh, Masoud, Yan, Zheng, Jäntti, Riku, Han, Zhu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Yifan
Dang, Yongchao
Kaveh, Masoud
Yan, Zheng
Jäntti, Riku
Han, Zhu
author_facet Zhang, Yifan
Dang, Yongchao
Kaveh, Masoud
Yan, Zheng
Jäntti, Riku
Han, Zhu
contents Ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) has become an integral part of ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) applications due to its energy-harvesting capabilities and ultra-low-power consumption. However, the open wireless environment exposes AmBC systems to various attacks, and existing authentication methods cannot be implemented between resource-constrained backscatter devices (BDs) due to their high computational demands.To this end, this paper proposes PLCRA-BD, a novel physical layer challenge-response authentication scheme between BDs in AmBC that overcomes BDs' limitations, supports high mobility, and performs robustly against impersonation and wireless attacks. It constructs embedded keys as physical layer fingerprints for lightweight identification and designs a joint transceiver that integrates BDs' backscatter waveform with receiver functionality to mitigate interference from ambient RF signals by exploiting repeated patterns in OFDM symbols. Based on this, a challenge-response authentication procedure is introduced to enable low-complexity fingerprint exchange between two paired BDs leveraging channel coherence, while securing the exchange process using a random number and unpredictable channel fading. Additionally, we optimize the authentication procedure for high-mobility scenarios, completing exchanges within the channel coherence time to minimize the impact of dynamic channel fluctuations. Security analysis confirms its resistance against impersonation, eavesdropping, replay, and counterfeiting attacks. Extensive simulations validate its effectiveness in resource-constrained BDs, demonstrating high authentication accuracy across diverse channel conditions, robustness against multiple wireless attacks, and superior efficiency compared to traditional authentication schemes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_18767
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Physical Layer Challenge-Response Authentication between Ambient Backscatter Devices
Zhang, Yifan
Dang, Yongchao
Kaveh, Masoud
Yan, Zheng
Jäntti, Riku
Han, Zhu
Cryptography and Security
Ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) has become an integral part of ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) applications due to its energy-harvesting capabilities and ultra-low-power consumption. However, the open wireless environment exposes AmBC systems to various attacks, and existing authentication methods cannot be implemented between resource-constrained backscatter devices (BDs) due to their high computational demands.To this end, this paper proposes PLCRA-BD, a novel physical layer challenge-response authentication scheme between BDs in AmBC that overcomes BDs' limitations, supports high mobility, and performs robustly against impersonation and wireless attacks. It constructs embedded keys as physical layer fingerprints for lightweight identification and designs a joint transceiver that integrates BDs' backscatter waveform with receiver functionality to mitigate interference from ambient RF signals by exploiting repeated patterns in OFDM symbols. Based on this, a challenge-response authentication procedure is introduced to enable low-complexity fingerprint exchange between two paired BDs leveraging channel coherence, while securing the exchange process using a random number and unpredictable channel fading. Additionally, we optimize the authentication procedure for high-mobility scenarios, completing exchanges within the channel coherence time to minimize the impact of dynamic channel fluctuations. Security analysis confirms its resistance against impersonation, eavesdropping, replay, and counterfeiting attacks. Extensive simulations validate its effectiveness in resource-constrained BDs, demonstrating high authentication accuracy across diverse channel conditions, robustness against multiple wireless attacks, and superior efficiency compared to traditional authentication schemes.
title Physical Layer Challenge-Response Authentication between Ambient Backscatter Devices
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.18767