Next-Gen SDR Focus Day: Cognitive Radios and Network Security: March 23, 2010

7:45am - 9:00am Security Problems Unique To Cognitive Radio Systems And Networks

The PHY and MAC layers of cognitive radio (CR) networks are very different from those of conventional wireless networks. The distinguishing attributes of CR networks raise new security implications that have not been studied until very recently. In this Master session we discuss those security implications with particular focus on security problems that are unique to CR systems and networks.

What will be covered:

• Variation between PHY and MAC layers and conventional wireless networks
• New security challenges

How you will benefit:

• Learn about the latest efforts towards enhancing security systems for cognitive radios and networks
• Hear about the latest R&D efforts towards CR systems and networks

9:00am - 12:00pm Assessing Military Networks: A Mission Oriented Perspective

Mobile networks are an increasingly important area for existing and future Warfighters. Enhanced approaches to networks are continually being offered by industry and must be evaluated by the military user. The intent of this tutorial is to provide the military user information which may be valuable as they meet the needs of selecting network solutions for themselves or their fellow associates. This tutorial provides the military network user with a framework for assessing mobile networks to simplify their understanding of the problem and provide a systematic approach to quantitatively evaluate various options. The tutorial assumes a transportable infrastructure supporting theater level operations from airborne networks to tactical edge networks.

The tutorial takes a top down approach looking first at CONOPS and applications, then examining network behaviors in the context of network interactions. It looks at the application requirements for quality of experience and illustrates analytical tools for estimating performance in specific network configurations. It treats application architectures and physical network architectures independently. The tutorial analyzes throughput, packet loss, latency, and jitter for specific representative examples (e.g. voice, TCP/IP, Command and Control, etc).

What you will learn:

• How missions and CONOPS translate into applications and networking solutions- what the implementation at boundary constraints are
• What networks need to provide to support applications
• How to predict the performance of applications in various network configurations against missions and CONOPS
• What metrics should I worry about and what metrics give me valid information against which I can act?

How you will benefit:

• Understand network approaches to achieve a high QoE, and the interaction of network performance on commonly used application types (e.g. C2, Voice, real-time video, ISR, data bases, file transfer, web browsing, text messages, etc.)
• Become familiar with the potentially adoptable commercial network protocols as they apply to referenced CONOPS.
• Gain knowledge on heuristics necessary for assessing network topologies and radio link technologies

Stephen Dudley
L-3 Communication Systems – West

1:00pm - 2:00pm Advancements In Security For Wireless Domain At The Lower Protocol Layers

Security is often addressed through cryptographic means, and typically is integrated into higher-layer protocols. However, such an approach is incomplete and there is much to gain by examining security at the lower layers of the protocol stack. In this session you will learn about current research that extends the concepts of cryptography and security by exploiting properties unique and special to the wireless environment. Physical layer methods for establishing provably secure secrets, as well as means to authenticate transmitters using physical layer signatures will be presented. Real prototype implementations have been developed, and by combining these aspects with more traditional cryptographic security methodologies, physical and link layer security mechanisms can enlarge the toolbox available to protect a tactical wireless network from adversarial threats.

What you will learn about:

• Physical Layer Methods for Achieving Confidentiality
• Physical Layer Methods for Achieving Authentication
• Defenses for Attacks of Radio Interference in Wireless Networks
• Physical Layer Techniques for Situational Awareness

How you will benefit:

• Learn about physical layer security mechanisms that leverage the unique decorrelative properties of the multipath channel for confidentiality and authentication
• Learn about how the physical and link layer can feed information to higher protocol layers to support situational awareness
• Hear about methods for diagnosing the presence of radio interference, as well as defense mechanisms for coping with radio interference.

Wade Trappe, PhD
Associate Director, The Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB) and Associate Professor, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
Rutgers University

2:00pm - 5:00pm Security Verification For SDR Applications

Software based communications systems that handle valuable, sensitive, and classified data, must maintain the data’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Security verification is essential to preserve confidence through independent evaluation and validation of the software’s security properties. DoD requires such verification for products sold to them. This session will describe the international security standards and evaluation methodology being used to verify a middleware foundation for a security critical SDR application.

How you will benefit:

• Discover how security problems are clearly defined
• Learn about security evaluation and international recognition
• Find out about government oversight of security evaluation and validation

What you will learn about:

• International standards for security evaluation
• The security issues that arise when integrating software from multiple developers
• Where to find expert help in meeting your security requirements

Gordon Uchenick
Senior Mentor/Principal Engineer
Objective Interface Systems