Enhancing wircless channel authentication in industrial control: Attack-resistant CSI-based PUF

Abstract

The extensive deployment of wireless networks in industrial settings has led to a surge in wireless-connected devices, presenting formidable security challenges. Traditional encryption approaches, relying on cryptographic keys without binding to physical hardware details, are highly susceptible to cloning attacks when the keys are compromised. This paper presents a novel solution: a Channel State Information-based Physical Unclonable Function (CSI-PUF) for wireless devices. By leveraging CSI, it generates a unique device identity. A meticulously designed fuzzy extractor algorithm is incorporated. In the enrollment phase, random numbers are generated and encoded with BCH error correction codes. During the reconstruction phase, errors in the CSI-PUF output bit sequence are transferred to the BCH-encoded random numbers. This allows for error elimination through decoding, safeguarding the confidentiality of CSI. A prototype WiFi terminal authentication system based on this CSI-PUF framework is developed and implemented. Experimental evaluations in an interference-free industrial control environment reveal that the system attains an average authentication success rate exceeding 95%. This significantly bolsters the security of WiFi-enabled devices, indicating that the CSI-PUF can effectively enhance the authentication security of wireless devices in industrial scenarios.