Detection of pilot contamination attack in T.D.D./S.D.M.A. systems

Abstract

In a time-division duplex (TDD) multiple antenna system, the channel state information (CSI) can be estimated using reverse training. A pilot contamination attack occurs when during the training phase, an adversary also sends identical training (pilot) signal as that of the legitimate receiver. This contaminates channel estimation and alters the legitimate pre-coder design, facilitating eavesdropping. We investigate superimposing a random sequence on the training sequence at the legitimate receivers and then using source enumeration methods to detect pilot contamination attack. The proposed method extends an existing TDD/TDMA uplink approach to TDD/SDMA uplink scenario. The detection performance is illustrated via simulations.