RF Red Teaming: Attacking and Defending Antenna Systems Essentials Training by Tonex
Modern missions depend on resilient RF links, yet adversaries increasingly probe antennas as the soft underbelly of wireless systems. This course immerses participants in attacker tradecraft and practical defenses around antenna design, deployment, and operations. You will learn how red teams fingerprint patterns, exploit side lobes, and spoof arrays—and how blue teams harden architectures and verify mitigations. Cybersecurity impact is front and center: compromised RF paths become pivots into data networks, command channels, and safety functions. Strengthening antenna-layer security raises the cost of attack, reduces exposure to RF-enabled intrusions, and protects mission-critical services.
Learning Objectives
- Map attacker goals, constraints, and TTPs across the antenna layer
- Identify and measure antenna vulnerabilities with repeatable methods
- Engineer countermeasures for side lobes, null steering, and spoofing
- Validate detection pipelines with realistic red team scenarios
- Integrate RF findings into enterprise risk, CI/CD, and IR playbooks
- Apply controls that improve cybersecurity across spectrum, waveforms, and control planes
Audience
- RF engineers and system designers
- Red and blue team practitioners
- Wireless and spectrum managers
- Security architects and penetration testers
- Network and platform reliability engineers
- Cybersecurity Professionals
Course Modules
Module 1 – Antenna Exploitation Basics
- Threat model for antenna surfaces
- Signal paths and attack surfaces
- Gain, directivity, and vulnerability ties
- Hardware, firmware, and control planes
- SDR toolchains and lawful use
- Test plans and safety boundaries
Module 2 – Pattern Fingerprinting Methods
- Beam patterns and side-lobe mapping
- EIRP profiling across azimuth/elevation
- Motion, polarization, and tilt effects
- Environmental multipath considerations
- Classifying antennas from emissions
- Fingerprint stability and drift tracking
Module 3 – Side-Lobe Attack Techniques
- Intercept and inject via side lobes
- Null-filling and deceptive beacons
- Range extension and covert channels
- Power control and AGC manipulation
- Desensitization and jamming blends
- Field craft to evade monitoring
Module 4 – Spoofing Antenna Arrays
- Phased array steering abuse patterns
- DOA/DOD misestimation and biasing
- Time/phase errors and calibration traps
- Synthetic aperture deception tactics
- Multi-emitter coordination strategies
- Counter-spoofing test scenarios
Module 5 – Detecting Adaptive Antennas
- Identifying adaptive behavior cues
- Rapid reconfiguration signatures
- Traffic, timing, and RF telemetry
- Spectrum analytics and ML features
- Sensor fusion with network data
- Alerting, triage, and confidence
Module 6 – Defense Engineering and Response
- Low-sidelobe designs and shielding
- Pattern control, filtering, and nulls
- Authentication, ranging, and timing
- Continuous verification and attestation
- Incident response for RF incidents
- Metrics, reporting, and hardening roadmap
Elevate your team’s readiness against antenna-layer threats. Enroll in Tonex’s RF Red Teaming Essentials to master attacker perspective, engineer effective defenses, and confidently validate the resilience of your wireless systems.