Abstract:

Traditional authentication approaches rely on the secure distribution of secret keys and their security depend on computational hardness assumptions. However, they are not resistant to key compromise and mostly will no longer remain secure under quantum computing. Recently, non-cryptographic authentication techniques emerged as promising alternatives that are free of the above problems. In this talk, I will present our recent research progresses on exploiting hard-to-forge wireless physical-layer characteristics to build novel authentication primitives. First, I will describe a proximity-based device authentication scheme based on channel characteristics, namely the received-signal-strength variation profile (RSSV). Then, I will introduce a message authentication and integrity protection scheme in the insecure wireless channel, by exploiting infeasibility of complete signal-cancellation in the physical layer. Both techniques have applications in wireless network security, for example, key/trust establishment without prior contact, and are scalable to a large number of devices. Finally, I will outline some future challenges along this research direction.

Bio:

Ming Li is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2011. His current main research interest is cyber security and privacy, with emphases on security and privacy in cloud computing and big data, wireless security and cyber-physical systems. He received the NSF Early Faculty Development (CAREER) Award in 2014, and the distinguished paper award from ACM ASIACCS 2013. He serves on the TPC of several premier conferences including IEEE INFOCOM and CNS, and served as session chairs for IEEE INFOCOM, CNS, Globecom, and ACM WiSec. He is a member of both IEEE and ACM.