WAVE: Secure Wireless Pairing Exploiting Human Body Movements

Abstract

Secure pairing between wireless devices with limited I/O interfaces is a challenging problem due to the difficulty in implementing authentication. Wireless channel characteristics can be utilized to facilitate authentication between such devices. In this paper, we propose WAVE, a novel scheme for pairing nearby wireless devices by monitoring the received signal strength (RSS) under the interference of intentionally involved human body movements. The deliberate body movements pose different effects on the legitimate channel and the attacking channel, which helps to distinguish a nearby legitimate device from an illegitimate one that is placed relatively further. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the scheme. Compared with other existing solutions, WAVE achieves high time efficiency and requires minimum hardware support, making it a favorable choice for appliances in wireless personal area networks.