Multidevice False Data Injection Attack Models of ADS-B Multilateration Systems

Location verification is a promising approach among various ADS-B security mechanisms, which can monitor announced positions in ADS-B messages with estimated positions. Based on common assumption that the attacker is equipped with only a single device, this mechanism can estimate the position state through analysis of time measurements of messages using multilateration algorithm. In this paper, we propose the formal model of multidevice false data injection attacks in the ATC system against the location verification. Assuming that attackers equipped with multiple devices can manipulate the ADS-B messages in distributed receivers without any mutual interference, such attacker can efficiently construct attack vectors to change the results of multilateration. The feasibility of a multidevice false data injection attack is demonstrated experimentally. Compared with previous multidevice attacks, the multidevice false data injection attacks can offer lower cost and more covert attacks. The simulation results show that the proposed attack can reduce the attackers’ cost by half and achieve better time synchronization to bypass the existing anomaly detection. Finally, we discuss the real-world constraints that limit their effectiveness and the countermeasures of these attacks.