Detection of DECT identity spoofing through radio frequency fingerprinting

Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) is an European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standard for short-range cordless communications with a large worldwide installed customer base, both in residential and enterprise environments. As in other wireless standards, the existence of active attacks against the security and privacy of the communications, involving identity spoofing, is well documented in the literature. Although the detection of spoofing attacks has been extensively investigated in the literature for other wireless protocols, such as Wi-Fi and GSM, very limited research has been conducted on their detection in DECT communications. In this paper, we describe an effective method for the detection of identity spoofing attacks on DECT communications, using a radio frequency fingerprinting technique. Our approach uses intrinsic features of the front end of DECT base stations as device fingerprints and uses them to distinguish between legitimate and spoofing devices. The results of measurement campaigns and the related analysis are presented and discussed.