Positioning services in different wireless networks : a development and security perspective

Abstract

In this Internet of things era, accurate positioning is crucial for all devices. Fingerprinting is a prevalent positioning technique in a Wi-Fi network that uses received signal strength (RSS) from the available access point to provide satisfactory user positioning in the indoor environment, where global navigation satellite systems perform poorly. However, the fingerprinting positioning system (FPS) faces many challenges. This thesis proposes development of the FPS by employing new technology, such as device-to-device communication, and new ideas such as error prediction and RSS quantization. The aviation and maritime sector uses automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) and the automatic identification system (AIS) to share aircraft and ship locations with other entities, respectively. This thesis identifies some severe security vulnerabilities of both technologies. An aviation and maritime pentesting platform has been set up to analyze the security of these two technologies thoroughly. The platform contains heterogeneous ADS-B and AIS devices such as mobile cockpit information systems, commercial transponders, various ADS-B and AIS receivers, and autopilot for drones. Various radio frequency-link-based attacks were implemented using software-defined radio. Along with existing attack ideas such as spoofing, denial of service, and jamming, this thesis demonstrates some novel attack concepts in ADS-B and AIS contexts, such as the coordinated attack, protocol fuzzing, and false distress signal. The results show that both ADS-B and the AIS are exposed to cyberattacks, leading to a system crash in the worst case. It has been found that most of the ADS-B setups correct up to 2-bit errors, whereas AIS configurations do not correct any errors. The investigation in this thesis demonstrates that an RSS and distance-to-emitter relation could distinguish real and fake ADS-B signals. The consistency of the results for a comprehensive range of hardwaresoftware configurations indicates the reliability of the approach and test results.