CSI-RFF: Leveraging Micro-Signals on CSI for RF Fingerprinting of Commodity WiFi
Ruiqi Kong, He Chen

TL;DR
This paper presents CSI-RFF, a novel RF fingerprinting framework that leverages micro-signals within CSI data to authenticate WiFi devices, achieving high accuracy and robustness over time and in mobile scenarios.
Contribution
The paper introduces micro-CSI as a new RF fingerprinting feature and develops a signal space-based extraction method for LoS scenarios, enabling effective device authentication.
Findings
Micro-CSI is attributable to RF circuitry imperfections.
Micro-CSI remains invariant over time for individual devices.
The method achieves ~99% attack detection with 0% false alarms.
Abstract
This paper introduces CSI-RFF, a new framework that leverages micro-signals embedded within Channel State Information (CSI) curves to realize Radio-Frequency Fingerprinting of commodity off-the-shelf (COTS) WiFi devices for open-set authentication. The micro-signals that serve as RF fingerprints are termed ``micro-CSI''. Through experimentation, we have found that the presence of micro-CSI can primarily be attributed to imperfections in the RF circuitry. Furthermore, this characteristic signal is detectable in WiFi 4/5/6 network interface cards (NICs). We have conducted further experiments to determine the most effective CSI collection configurations to stabilize micro-CSI. Yet, extracting micro-CSI for authentication purposes poses a significant challenge. This complexity arises from the fact that CSI measurements inherently include both micro-CSI and the distortions introduced by…
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Taxonomy
TopicsIndoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies · Wireless Signal Modulation Classification · RFID technology advancements
