Eavesdropping on Goal-Oriented Communication: Timing Attacks and Countermeasures

TL;DR

This paper investigates timing-based side-channel attacks on goal-oriented communication systems, proposing a theoretical framework and heuristics to balance communication efficiency with information security.

Contribution

It introduces a formal model for timing attacks in goal-oriented scheduling and proposes countermeasures to mitigate information leakage.

Findings

Timing attacks can reveal remote process states despite secure content.

A theoretical framework quantifies attack effectiveness and countermeasures.

Heuristics balance communication efficiency and security.

Abstract

Goal-oriented communication is a new paradigm that considers the meaning of transmitted information to optimize communication. One possible application is the remote monitoring of a process under communication costs: scheduling updates based on goal-oriented considerations can significantly reduce transmission frequency while maintaining high-quality tracking performance. However, goal-oriented scheduling also opens a timing-based side-channel that an eavesdropper may exploit to obtain information about the state of the remote process, even if the content of updates is perfectly secure. In this work, we study an eavesdropping attack against pull-based goal-oriented scheduling for the tracking of remote Markov processes. We provide a theoretical framework for defining the effectiveness of the attack and of possible countermeasures, as well as a practical heuristic that can provide a balance between the performance gains offered by goal-oriented communication and the information leakage.