The intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a promising new paradigm in wireless communications for meeting the growing connectivity demands in next-generation mobile networks. IRS, also known as software-controlled metasurfaces, consist of an array of adjustable radio wave reflectors, enabling smart radio environments, e.g., for enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and spatial diversity of wireless channels. Research on IRS to date has been largely focused on constructive applications. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time that the IRS provides a practical low-cost toolkit for attackers to easily perform complex signal manipulation attacks on the physical layer in real time. We introduce the environment reconfiguration attack (ERA) as a novel class of jamming attacks in wireless radio networks. Here, an adversary leverages the IRS to rapidly vary the electromagnetic propagation environment to disturb legitimate receivers. The IRS gives the adversary a key advantage over traditional jamming: It no longer has to actively emit jamming signals, instead the IRS reflects existing legitimate signals. In addition, the adversary doesn't need any knowledge about the legitimate channel. We thoroughly investigate the ERA in wireless systems based on the widely employed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. We present insights into the attack through analytical analysis, simulations, as well as experiments. Our results show that the ERA allows to severely degrade the available data rates even with reasonably small IRS sizes. Finally, we implement an attacker setup and demonstrate a practical ERA to slow down an entire Wi-Fi network.
翻译:智能反射表面(IRS)是无线通信中一个有希望的新范例,可以满足下一代移动网络不断增长的连通性需求。IRS(又称软件控制的元表面)由一系列可调整的无线电波反射器组成,使智能无线电环境成为,例如,用于加强信号对噪音比率(SNR)和无线频道的空间多样性。迄今为止对IRS的研究主要侧重于建设性的应用。在这项工作中,我们第一次表明IRS为攻击者提供了实用的低成本工具包,使其在实际时间对物理层进行复杂的信号操纵攻击。我们引入了环境重组攻击,作为无线无线电网络中新型的干扰攻击。在这里,敌人利用IRS迅速改变电磁传播环境以扰乱合法接收器。IRS使对手在传统干扰上有一个关键优势:不再需要积极地降低干扰信号,而IRS则反映现有的稳定信号。此外,我们敌人不需要任何关于合法攻击频道的复杂规模的信号。我们对 ERA 进行彻底调查,通过我们目前进行的频率分析, 将ERA 引入了一个可分析的ERA 数据分析系统, 以显示我们目前对磁变变的磁分析。