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Battery Depletion Attacks on NB-IoT Devices Using Interference

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Computer Security. ESORICS 2021 International Workshops (ESORICS 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 13106))

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Abstract

Narrowband-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a relatively new Low PowerWide Area Network (LPWAN) technology used to implement large-scale IoT applications. The economic viability of most applications depends on a long battery life of deployed devices (\(\tilde{1}0\) years). In this paper, we document two interference attacks on the NB-IoT communication link that lead to a battery depletion in devices. These attacks can be carried out without disruption of data delivery and are therefore hard to detect. We describe a Matlab based simulation environment that can be used to investigate interference on NB-IoT communication, and we then use this environment to study the two attacks. For example, we show that battery lifetime can be reduced from 17 years to as low as four months.

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Acknowledgement

This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number 18/CRT/6222.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Information Technology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Vlad Ionescu & Utz Roedig

Authors
  1. Vlad Ionescu
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  2. Utz Roedig
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vlad Ionescu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Gjøvik, Norway

    Sokratis Katsikas

  2. University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece

    Costas Lambrinoudakis

  3. Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Nora Cuppens

  4. University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    John Mylopoulos

  5. University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece

    Christos Kalloniatis

  6. Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Weizhi Meng

  7. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Steven Furnell

  8. Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Frank Pallas

  9. Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft gGmbH, Berlin, Germany

    Jörg Pohle

  10. Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    M. Angela Sasse

  11. Norwegian Computing Center, Oslo, Norway

    Habtamu Abie

  12. University of Trento and Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy

    Silvio Ranise

  13. Università degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy

    Luca Verderame

  14. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Genoa, Italy

    Enrico Cambiaso

  15. Indra, Alcobendas, Spain

    Jorge Maestre Vidal

  16. Indra, Alcobendas, Spain

    Marco Antonio Sotelo Monge

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Ionescu, V., Roedig, U. (2022). Battery Depletion Attacks on NB-IoT Devices Using Interference. In: Katsikas, S., et al. Computer Security. ESORICS 2021 International Workshops. ESORICS 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13106. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95484-0_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95484-0_17

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95484-0

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