Frank Hessel

dblp:266/1468 · DBLP profile ↗
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5ranked-venue papers
2as first author
4since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0001-8158-3030ORCID · corroborated

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Security and privacy · 3 · 1 first-author · 2 since 2021Computer networks · 2 · 1 first-author · 2 since 2021
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 BlindSpot: Efficient Single-Node Selective Jamming for LoRaWAN
abstract
LoRaWAN has become a widely adopted, cost-effective solution for Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs), bridging the gap between short-range wireless protocols and high-power cellular networks. Its affordable hardware and robust physical layer make it a key enabler for Internet of Things (IoT) applications across sectors like agriculture, smart cities, and industrial automation-domains where security is of central importance. In this paper, we present BlindSpot, a novel jamming attack that enables efficient selective jamming of LoRaWAN gateways. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on creating high-power interference, BlindSpot exploits the limited number of demodulation paths in LoRaWAN gateways to continuously occupy the gateways with fabricated frames, blinding them for any other legitimate transmissions. Compared to existing approaches, this reduces the attacker's power requirements and allows them to decode the legitimate transmissions with a high probability. Selectively retransmitting these frames, the attacker has precise control over which transmissions can be decoded by the gateway. Using a Software-Defined Radio (SDR)-based LoRa transceiver, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the attack against commercial LoRaWAN gateways and propose detection and mitigation strategies to improve the security of LoRaWAN deployments.
Vincenz Mechler, Frank Hessel, Matthias Hollick, Bastian Bloessl
WISEC2
2025 DEMO: Illuminating the BlindSpot: Efficient Single-Node Selective Jamming for LoRaWAN
abstract
LoRaWAN has become a widely adopted, cost-effective solution for Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs), bridging the gap between short-range wireless protocols and high-power cellular networks. Its affordable hardware and robust physical layer make it a key enabler for Internet of Things (IoT) applications across sectors like agriculture, smart cities, and industrial automation-domains where security is of central importance. Investigating LoRaWAN's resilience against physical-layer attacks, we developed BlindSpot, a novel jamming attack targeting state-of-the-art LoRaWAN gateways. Unlike traditional jammers, BlindSpot does not rely on overpowering transmissions but prevents their reception by exhausting resources at the gateway. This is possible since commercial gateway processors have only a limited number of demodulators for parallel frame reception. In this demo, we show the effectiveness of the attack against a commercial LoRaWAN gateway, compare it to traditional jamming, and show how our Software-Defined Radio (SDR)-based receiver can overcome the attack.
Vincenz Mechler, Frank Hessel, Matthias Hollick, Bastian Bloessl
WISEC2
2023 Introducing FreeSpeaker - A Modular Smart Home Hub Prototyping Platform
abstract
Smart home speakers have become a commodity item in many households and provide interesting research opportunities in areas like wireless communication and human-computer interaction. Commercial devices do not provide sufficient access for many research tasks. We present a modular smart home hub designed specifically for research purposes. The electronic and mechanical components are designed with reproducibility in mind and can be easily recombined for a project's needs. Additionally, we show applications of the hub in different scenarios.
Hermann Leinweber, Jonatan Crystall, Frank Hessel, Florentin Putz, Matthias Hollick
MobiCom3
2022 LoRaWAN Security: An Evolvable Survey on Vulnerabilities, Attacks and their Systematic Mitigation
abstract
The changing vulnerability and threat landscape constantly challenge the security of wireless communication standards and protocols. For the Internet of Things (IoT), LoRaWAN is one of the dominant technologies for urban environments, industrial settings, or critical infrastructures due to its low-power and long-range capabilities. LoRaWAN IoT deployments are expected to operate for multiple years or even decades. Hence, it is imperative to maintain operational security at all times while continuously evolving the security of the standard and its implementations. We survey LoRaWAN security and follow a systematic and evolvable approach that can be dynamically updated. To this end, we propose a novel methodology to create evolvable surveys which relate the analyzed critical security concepts, thus allowing IT security experts to reason about LoRaWAN security properties over time. With this, we provide a tool to hardware manufacturers, software developers and providers, and network operators to achieve sustainable security for IoT deployments.
Frank Hessel, Lars Almon, Matthias Hollick
ACM Trans. Sens. Networks1
2020 ChirpOTLE: a framework for practical LoRaWAN security evaluation
abstract
Low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) are becoming an integral part of the Internet of Things. As a consequence, businesses, administration, and, subsequently, society itself depend on the reliability and availability of these communication networks.
Frank Hessel, Lars Almon, Flor Álvarez
WISEC1