  In this paper, we introduce a strong adversarial attack, referred to as the
flipping attack, on Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) systems. In this
attack, the attacker, which is appropriately positioned between the transmitter
and the receiver, instantaneously flips the transmitted symbols in the air at
50% rate, thereby driving the channel capacity to zero. Unlike the traditional
jamming attack, this attack, when perfectly executed, cannot be detected at the
receiver using signal-to-noise-ratio measurements. However, this attack
necessitates the attacker to perfectly know the realizations of all the
channels in the model. We first introduce the consequences of the flipping
attack on narrowband frequency-flat channels, and subsequently discuss its
feasibility in wideband frequency-selective channels. From the legitimate
users' perspective, we present a method to detect this attack and also propose
heuristics to improve the error-performance under the attack. We emphasize that
future cyber-physical systems that employ DSSS should design transceivers to
detect the proposed flipping attack, and then apply appropriate
countermeasures.
