Wiretapping or Jamming: On Eavesdropper Attacking Strategy in mmWave Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

Millimeter-meter (mmWave) communication is difficult to wiretap due to the short transmission range and highly directional transmitting antennas, meaning that wiretapping is not the best attacking strategy for eavesdroppers in mmWave networks. However, eavesdroppers can maximize their payoffs by opportunistically switching between the wiretapping attack and other attacks, leading to a more interesting and hazardous attack. This paper, for the first time, investigates such selective eavesdropper attacking strategies, i.e., the selection between the wiretapping attack and another representative attack (jamming), in mmWave ad hoc networks. We first propose two attacking strategies, i.e., Random Attacking (RA), where eavesdroppers independently and randomly select their attack patterns with a common probability, and Selective Attacking based on Distances (SA-D), where each eavesdropper independently conducts the selection based on its smallest distances to transmitters and receivers, respectively. Using tools from stochastic geometry, we then perform theoretical modelling on the secrecy transmission capacity (STC) of the network under both strategies. Finally, we provide extensive numerical results to illustrate the impacts of attacking parameters on the network STC performance under the proposed strategies.