Modeling and Analysis of Eavesdropping Attack in 802.11ad mmWave Wireless Networks

Abstract

Next generation wireless communication networks utilizing 60 GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands are expected to achieve multi-gigabit throughput with the use of highly directional phased-array antennas. These directional signal beams provide enhanced security to the legitimate networks due to the increased difficulties of eavesdropping. However, there still exists significant possibility of eavesdropping since 1) the reflections of the signal beam from ambient reflectors enables opportunistic stationary eavesdropping attacks, and; 2) carefully designed beam exploration strategy enables active nomadic eavesdropping attack. This paper discusses eavesdropper attack strategies for 802.11ad mmWave systems and provides the first analytical model to characterize the success possibility of eavesdropping in both opportunistic stationary attacks and active nomadic attacks. We derive the success probability of eavesdropping considering the ambient reflectors in the environment and errors introduced in the beam exploration strategies of the proposed eavesdropping attacker models. We study the success probability for both opportunistic stationary attack scenario and active nomadic attack scenario through numerical simulations. In addition to numerical simulations, we also evaluate the proposed attacker models using an 802.11ad test bed consisting of commercially available off-the-shelf devices.