CSKES: A Context-Based Secure Keyless Entry System

Remote keyless entry has been widely used on access control systems. These systems, in particular, Passive Keyless Entry and Start systems (PKES), allow drivers automatically unlock their vehicles by standing within one meter of the vehicle while carrying a key fob. Traditional key fobs adopt the RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) wireless communication technology. Yet, due to the restricted processing capacity of the key fobs and the vulnerabilities of RFID technology, these systems are subject to relay attack. In this paper, we propose a Context-based Secure Keyless Entry System (CSKES) that adopts BLE (Blue-tooth Low Energy) as a wireless communication technology and utilizes multiple context-based physical security features, namely, RSSI (Receiving Signal Strength Indicator), RTT (Round-Trip Time), GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates, and Wi-Fi access point lists, to precisely identify the close proximity of a vehicle to its corresponding key fob. This multi-feature proximity identification system is highly efficient to mitigate classic relay attacks. We first introduce the implementation of the proposed system. Then we evaluate the system performance using three classification models with a dataset collected from normal and abnormal use cases. The results show that the proposed Context-based Secure Keyless Entry System demonstrates great efficiency in identifying physical proximity and preventing classic relay attack.