Synergistic Authentication in Beam Alignment for Secure mmWave Communications

This research addresses security vulnerabilities in mmWave (millimeter wave, a type of wireless communication using very high frequencies) MIMO systems during beam alignment, where directional beams used to establish connections are susceptible to impersonation attacks (where an attacker tricks a device by pretending to be someone else). The researchers propose two authentication schemes that use physical layer features like antenna coupling patterns and signal arrival angles to verify device identity and prevent these attacks.