Spatial spectrum approach for pilot spoofing attack detection in MIMO systems

In this study, a spatial spectrum method is proposed to cope with the pilot spoofing attack (PSA) problem by exploiting the of uplink-downlink channel reciprocity in time-division-duplex multiple-input multiple-output systems. First, the spoofing attack in the uplink stage is detected by a threshold derived from the predefined false alarm based on the estimated spatial spectrum. When the PSA occurs, the transmitter (That is Alice) can detect either one or two spatial spectrum peaks. Then, the legitimate user (That is Bob) and Eve are recognized in the downlink stage via the channel reciprocity property based on the difference between the spatial spectra if PSA occurs. This way, the presence of Eve and the direction of arrival of Eve and Bob can be identified at the transmitter end. Because noise is suppressed by a spatial spectrum, the detection performance is reliable even for low signal-noise ratios and a short training length. Consequently, Bob can use beamforming to transmit secure information during the data transmission stage. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme compared with conventional methods.