Today, more than 8 billion devices are connected around the world, forming an “internet of things” that includes medical devices, wearables, vehicles, and smart household and city technologies. By 2020, experts estimate that number will rise to more than 20 billion devices, all uploading and sharing data online.
But those devices are vulnerable to hacker attacks that locate, intercept, and overwrite the data, jamming signals and generally wreaking havoc. One method to protect the data is called “frequency hopping,” which sends each data packet, containing thousands of individual bits, on a random, unique radio frequency (RF) channel, so hackers can’t pin down any given packet. Hopping large packets, however, is just slow enough that hackers can still pull off an attack.
Now MIT researchers have developed a novel transmitter that frequency hops each individual 1 or 0 bit of a data packet, every microsecond, which is fast enough to thwart even the quickest hackers.
The transmitter leverages frequency-agile devices called bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators and rapidly switches between a wide range of RF channels, sending information for a data bit with each hop. In addition, the researchers incorporated a channel generator that, each microsecond, selects the random channel to send each bit. On top of that, the researchers developed a wireless protocol – different from the protocol used today — to support the ultra fast frequency hopping.
The transmitter could help secure medical devices, such as insulin pumps and pacemakers, that could be attacked if a hacker wants to harm someone.When people start corrupting the messages [of these devices] it starts affecting people’s lives.
In ultra fast frequency-hopping method, the researchers first replaced a crystal oscillator — which vibrates to create an electrical signal — with an oscillator based on a BAW resonator. However, the BAW resonators only cover about 4 to 5 megahertz of frequency channels, falling far short of the 80-megahertz range available in the 2.4-gigahertz band designated for wireless communication.
By using the pre shared key, the receiver will calculate that 1 will be sent on channel 14 and a 0 will be sent on channel 31 for one hop. But the transmitter only wants the receiver to decode a 1. The transmitter will send a 1 on channel 14, and send nothing on channel 31. The receiver sees channel 14 has a higher energy and, knowing that’s a 1-bit channel, decodes a 1. In the next microsecond, the transmitter selects two more random channels for the next bit and repeats the process.
This innovation was only possible by working across the various layers in the communication stack requiring new circuits, architectures, and protocols. It has the potential to address key security challenges in IoT devices across industries.
News Source: http://news.mit.edu/2018/novel-transmitter-protects-wireless-data-hackers-0611
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