Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2008.00147

Achieving Covertness and Secrecy: A New Paradigm for Secure Wireless Communication

Huihui Wu, Yuanyu Zhang, Yulong Shen, Xiaohong Jiang

Published Aug 1, 2020• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

This paper explores a new secure wireless communication paradigm where the physical layer security technology is applied to counteract both the detection and eavesdropping attacks, such that the critical covertness and secrecy properties of the communication are jointly guaranteed. We first provide theoretical modeling for covertness outage probability (COP), secrecy outage probability (SOP) and transmission probability (TP) to depict the covertness, secrecy and transmission performances of the paradigm. To understand the fundamental security performance under the new paradigm, we then define a new metric - covert secrecy rate (CSR), which characterizes the maximum transmission rate subject to the constraints of COP, SOP and TP. We further conduct detailed theoretical analysis to identify the CSR under various scenarios determined by the detector-eavesdropper relationships and the secure transmission schemes adopted by transmitters. Finally, numerical results are provided to illustrate the achievable performances under the new secure communication paradigm.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2008.00147

Related papers

Achieving Covertness and Secrecy: The Interplay Between Detection and Eavesdropping Attacks

Huihui Wu, Yuanyu Zhang, Yulong Shen +2 more

This paper explores a new secure wireless communication scenario for the data collection in the Internet of Things (IoT) where the physical layer security technology is applied to counteract both the detection and eavesdropping attacks, such that the critical covertness and secrecy properties of the communication are jointly guaranteed. We first provide theoretical modeling for covertness outage probability (COP), secrecy outage probability (SOP) and transmission probability (TP) to depict the covertness, secrecy and transmission performances of the wireless communication system. To understand the fundamental security performance under the wireless communication system, we then define a new metric -covert secrecy rate (CSR), which characterizes the maximum transmission rate subject to the constraints of COP, SOP and TP. We further conduct detailed theoretical analysis to identify the CSR under various scenarios determined by the detector-eavesdropper relationships and the secure transmission schemes adopted by transmitters. Finally, numerical results are provided to illustrate the achievable performances under the secure wireless communication system.

IEEE Internet of Things Journal•Jul 18, 2023•41 citations

On Secure Wireless Communications for IoT Under Eavesdropper Collusion

Yuanyu Zhang, Yulong Shen, Hua Wang +2 more

Wireless communication is one of the key technologies that actualize the Internet of Things (IoT) concept into the real world. Understanding the security performance of wireless communications lays the foundation for the security management of IoT. Eavesdropper collusion represents a significant threat to wireless communication security, while physical-layer security serves as a promising approach to providing a strong form of security guarantee. This paper studies the important secrecy outage performance of wireless communications under eavesdropper collusion, where the physical layer security is adopted to counteract such attack. Based on the classical Probability Theory, we first conduct analysis on the secrecy outage of the simple noncolluding case in which eavesdroppers do not collude and operate independently. For the secrecy outage analysis of the more hazardous M-colluding scenario, where any M eavesdroppers can combine their observations to decode the message, the techniques of Laplace transform, keyhole contour integral, and Cauchy Integral Theorem are jointly adopted to work around the highly cumbersome multifold convolution problem involved in such analysis, such that the related signal-to-interference ratio modeling for all colluding eavesdroppers can be conducted and thus the corresponding secrecy outage probability can be analytically determined. Finally, simulation and numerical results are provided to illustrate our theoretical achievements. An interesting observation suggests that the SOP increases first superlinearly and then sublinearly with M.

IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering•Dec 10, 2015•147 citations

New physical layer security measures for wireless transmissions over fading channels

Biao He, Xiangyun Zhou

For secure communications over wireless fading channels, the secrecy outage probability is widely used as the performance measure. However, the current secrecy outage formulation has two major limitations in evaluating the secrecy performance: a) the amount of information leakage to the eavesdropper cannot be characterized when an outage occurs, b) the current formulation does not give insights into the eavesdropper's decodability of confidential messages. To overcome such limitations and obtain in-depth understanding of secrecy performance over wireless fading channels, this paper proposes three new secrecy measures for different practical aims, namely, 1) generalized secrecy outage probability, 2) asymptotic lower bound on eavesdropper's decoding error probability, and 3) average information leakage rate. A specific example of wireless transmissions with a fixed-rate wiretap code is given to illustrate the use of the proposed secrecy measures.

Globecom•Dec 1, 2014•7 citations

On Secrecy Metrics for Physical Layer Security Over Quasi-Static Fading Channels

Biao He, Zhou, Xiangyun, Swindlehurst, A Lee

Theoretical studies on physical layer security often adopt the secrecy outage probability as the performance metric for wireless communications over quasi-static fading channels. The secrecy outage probability has two limitations from a practical point of view: 1) it does not give any insight into the eavesdropper's decodability of confidential messages and 2) it cannot characterize the amount of information leakage to the eavesdropper when an outage occurs. Motivated by the limitations of the secrecy outage probability, we propose three new secrecy metrics for secure transmissions over quasi-static fading channels. The first metric establishes a link between the concept of secrecy outage and the decodability of messages at the eavesdropper. The second metric provides an error-probability-based secrecy metric which is typically used for the practical implementation of secure wireless systems. The third metric characterizes how much or how fast the confidential information is leaked to the eavesdropper. We show that the proposed secrecy metrics collectively give a more comprehensive understanding of physical layer security over fading channels and enable one to appropriately design secure communication systems with different views on how secrecy is measured.

•Jan 1, 2016•64 citations

On Secrecy Metrics for Physical Layer Security Over Quasi-Static Fading Channels

Biao He, Xiangyun Zhou, A. Lee Swindlehurst

Theoretical studies on physical layer security often adopt the secrecy outage probability as the performance metric for wireless communications over quasi-static fading channels. The secrecy outage probability has two limitations from a practical point of view: 1) it does not give any insight into the eavesdropper's decodability of confidential messages and 2) it cannot characterize the amount of information leakage to the eavesdropper when an outage occurs. Motivated by the limitations of the secrecy outage probability, we propose three new secrecy metrics for secure transmissions over quasi-static fading channels. The first metric establishes a link between the concept of secrecy outage and the decodability of messages at the eavesdropper. The second metric provides an error-probability-based secrecy metric which is typically used for the practical implementation of secure wireless systems. The third metric characterizes how much or how fast the confidential information is leaked to the eavesdropper. We show that the proposed secrecy metrics collectively give a more comprehensive understanding of physical layer security over fading channels and enable one to appropriately design secure communication systems with different views on how secrecy is measured.

arXiv:1607.05457•IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications•Jul 20, 2016•69 citations

Physical-layer secrecy and privacy of wireless communication

Hien Quang Ta

The motivation of this thesis is to contribute to the improvement of the physical-layer secrecy and privacy of wireless communication. Firstly, the rate and power adaptation technique is investigated to improve the energy efficiency of the physical-layer secrecy. We present the optimum rate and power adaptation rule that maximizes the average secrecy energy efficiency(SEE) subject to an average transmission power constraint. The SEE is defined as the outage secrecy capacity, the largest secrecy rate, such that the outage probability is less than a certain value, divided by the total power consumption (bits per joule). We also characterize the SEE gain provided by varying the rate and/or the power, and discuss the impact of the number of antennas on the optimum adaptation rule. Secondly, the joint impact of imperfect knowledge of the channel gain (channel uncertainty) and noise power (noise uncertainty) at the adversary is investigated to improve the physical-layer privacy. We characterize the covert throughput gain provided by the channel uncertainty as well as the covert throughput loss caused by the channel fading as a function of the noise uncertainty. We also show the impact the channel uncertainty on the total detection error probability and the covert throughput. Our result shows that the channel fading is crucial to hiding the signal transmission, particularly when the noise uncertainty is low and/or the receive SNR is high. The impact of the channel uncertainty on the total detection error probability and the covert throughput is more significant when the noise uncertainty is larger. Finally, hiding a covert (private) message in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems by superimposing (embedding) it under other messages is proposed.We determine the total detection error probability (sum of false alarm and missed detection probability), the adversary's optimum detection strategy that minimizes the total detection error probability, and the communicator's optimum message hiding strategy that maximizes the total detection error probability. Additionally, we explore exploiting the channel variations to further increase the total detection error probability. We show that the total detection error probability increases and converges to 1 as the number of users increases and that the total detection error probability, hence the covert rate, can be increased by increasing the transmission power when the channel variation is exploited.

•Jan 1, 2019•2 citations
This paper explores a new secure wireless communication paradigm where the physical layer security technology is applied to counteract both the detection and eavesdropping attacks, such that the critical covertness and secrecy properties of the communication are jointly guaranteed. We first provide theoretical modeling for covertness outage probability (COP), secrecy outage probability (SOP) and transmission probability (TP) to depict the covertness, secrecy and transmission performances of the paradigm. To understand the fundamental security performance under the new paradigm, we then define a new metric - covert secrecy rate (CSR), which characterizes the maximum transmission rate subject to the constraints of COP, SOP and TP. We further conduct detailed theoretical analysis to identify the CSR under various scenarios determined by the detector-eavesdropper relationships and the secure transmission schemes adopted by transmitters. Finally, numerical results are provided to illustrate the achievable performances under the new secure communication paradigm.
This paper explores a new secure wireless communication scenario for the data collection in the Internet of Things (IoT) where the physical layer security technology is applied to counteract both the detection and eavesdropping attacks, such that the critical covertness and secrecy properties of the communication are jointly guaranteed. We first provide theoretical modeling for covertness outage probability (COP), secrecy outage probability (SOP) and transmission probability (TP) to depict the covertness, secrecy and transmission performances of the wireless communication system. To understand the fundamental security performance under the wireless communication system, we then define a new metric -covert secrecy rate (CSR), which characterizes the maximum transmission rate subject to the constraints of COP, SOP and TP. We further conduct detailed theoretical analysis to identify the CSR under various scenarios determined by the detector-eavesdropper relationships and the secure transmission schemes adopted by transmitters. Finally, numerical results are provided to illustrate the achievable performances under the secure wireless communication system.
Wireless communication is one of the key technologies that actualize the Internet of Things (IoT) concept into the real world. Understanding the security performance of wireless communications lays the foundation for the security management of IoT. Eavesdropper collusion represents a significant threat to wireless communication security, while physical-layer security serves as a promising approach to providing a strong form of security guarantee. This paper studies the important secrecy outage performance of wireless communications under eavesdropper collusion, where the physical layer security is adopted to counteract such attack. Based on the classical Probability Theory, we first conduct analysis on the secrecy outage of the simple noncolluding case in which eavesdroppers do not collude and operate independently. For the secrecy outage analysis of the more hazardous M-colluding scenario, where any M eavesdroppers can combine their observations to decode the message, the techniques of Laplace transform, keyhole contour integral, and Cauchy Integral Theorem are jointly adopted to work around the highly cumbersome multifold convolution problem involved in such analysis, such that the related signal-to-interference ratio modeling for all colluding eavesdroppers can be conducted and thus the corresponding secrecy outage probability can be analytically determined. Finally, simulation and numerical results are provided to illustrate our theoretical achievements. An interesting observation suggests that the SOP increases first superlinearly and then sublinearly with M.
For secure communications over wireless fading channels, the secrecy outage probability is widely used as the performance measure. However, the current secrecy outage formulation has two major limitations in evaluating the secrecy performance: a) the amount of information leakage to the eavesdropper cannot be characterized when an outage occurs, b) the current formulation does not give insights into the eavesdropper's decodability of confidential messages. To overcome such limitations and obtain in-depth understanding of secrecy performance over wireless fading channels, this paper proposes three new secrecy measures for different practical aims, namely, 1) generalized secrecy outage probability, 2) asymptotic lower bound on eavesdropper's decoding error probability, and 3) average information leakage rate. A specific example of wireless transmissions with a fixed-rate wiretap code is given to illustrate the use of the proposed secrecy measures.
Theoretical studies on physical layer security often adopt the secrecy outage probability as the performance metric for wireless communications over quasi-static fading channels. The secrecy outage probability has two limitations from a practical point of view: 1) it does not give any insight into the eavesdropper's decodability of confidential messages and 2) it cannot characterize the amount of information leakage to the eavesdropper when an outage occurs. Motivated by the limitations of the secrecy outage probability, we propose three new secrecy metrics for secure transmissions over quasi-static fading channels. The first metric establishes a link between the concept of secrecy outage and the decodability of messages at the eavesdropper. The second metric provides an error-probability-based secrecy metric which is typically used for the practical implementation of secure wireless systems. The third metric characterizes how much or how fast the confidential information is leaked to the eavesdropper. We show that the proposed secrecy metrics collectively give a more comprehensive understanding of physical layer security over fading channels and enable one to appropriately design secure communication systems with different views on how secrecy is measured.
Theoretical studies on physical layer security often adopt the secrecy outage probability as the performance metric for wireless communications over quasi-static fading channels. The secrecy outage probability has two limitations from a practical point of view: 1) it does not give any insight into the eavesdropper's decodability of confidential messages and 2) it cannot characterize the amount of information leakage to the eavesdropper when an outage occurs. Motivated by the limitations of the secrecy outage probability, we propose three new secrecy metrics for secure transmissions over quasi-static fading channels. The first metric establishes a link between the concept of secrecy outage and the decodability of messages at the eavesdropper. The second metric provides an error-probability-based secrecy metric which is typically used for the practical implementation of secure wireless systems. The third metric characterizes how much or how fast the confidential information is leaked to the eavesdropper. We show that the proposed secrecy metrics collectively give a more comprehensive understanding of physical layer security over fading channels and enable one to appropriately design secure communication systems with different views on how secrecy is measured.
The motivation of this thesis is to contribute to the improvement of the physical-layer secrecy and privacy of wireless communication. Firstly, the rate and power adaptation technique is investigated to improve the energy efficiency of the physical-layer secrecy. We present the optimum rate and power adaptation rule that maximizes the average secrecy energy efficiency(SEE) subject to an average transmission power constraint. The SEE is defined as the outage secrecy capacity, the largest secrecy rate, such that the outage probability is less than a certain value, divided by the total power consumption (bits per joule). We also characterize the SEE gain provided by varying the rate and/or the power, and discuss the impact of the number of antennas on the optimum adaptation rule. Secondly, the joint impact of imperfect knowledge of the channel gain (channel uncertainty) and noise power (noise uncertainty) at the adversary is investigated to improve the physical-layer privacy. We characterize the covert throughput gain provided by the channel uncertainty as well as the covert throughput loss caused by the channel fading as a function of the noise uncertainty. We also show the impact the channel uncertainty on the total detection error probability and the covert throughput. Our result shows that the channel fading is crucial to hiding the signal transmission, particularly when the noise uncertainty is low and/or the receive SNR is high. The impact of the channel uncertainty on the total detection error probability and the covert throughput is more significant when the noise uncertainty is larger. Finally, hiding a covert (private) message in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems by superimposing (embedding) it under other messages is proposed.We determine the total detection error probability (sum of false alarm and missed detection probability), the adversary's optimum detection strategy that minimizes the total detection error probability, and the communicator's optimum message hiding strategy that maximizes the total detection error probability. Additionally, we explore exploiting the channel variations to further increase the total detection error probability. We show that the total detection error probability increases and converges to 1 as the number of users increases and that the total detection error probability, hence the covert rate, can be increased by increasing the transmission power when the channel variation is exploited.