Physical-layer security (PLS) for industrial indoor terahertz (THz) wireless communication applications is considered. We use a similar model as being employed for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) wireless communication channels. A cell communication and a directed communication scenario are analyzed to illustrate the achievable semantic security guarantees for a wiretap channel with finite-blocklength THz-wireless communication links. We show that weakly directed transmitter (Al-ice) antennas, which allow cell-type communication with multiple legitimate receivers (Bobs) without adaptation of the alignment, result in large insecure regions. In the directed communication scenario, the resulting insecure regions are shown to cover a large volume of the indoor environment only if the distance between Alice and Bob is large. Thus, our results for the two selected scenarios reveal that there is a stringent trade-off between the targeted semantic security level and the number of reliably and securely accessible legitimate receivers. Furthermore, the effects of secrecy code parameters and antenna properties on the achievable semantic security levels are illustrated to show directions for possible improvements to guarantee practically-acceptable security levels with PLS methods for industrial indoor THz-wireless communication applications.
Physical-layer security (PLS) for industrial indoor terahertz (THz) wireless communication applications is considered. We use a similar model as being employed for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) wireless communication channels. A cell communication and a directed communication scenario are analyzed to illustrate the achievable semantic security guarantees for a wiretap channel with finite-blocklength THz-wireless communication links. We show that weakly directed transmitter (Al-ice) antennas, which allow cell-type communication with multiple legitimate receivers (Bobs) without adaptation of the alignment, result in large insecure regions. In the directed communication scenario, the resulting insecure regions are shown to cover a large volume of the indoor environment only if the distance between Alice and Bob is large. Thus, our results for the two selected scenarios reveal that there is a stringent trade-off between the targeted semantic security level and the number of reliably and securely accessible legitimate receivers. Furthermore, the effects of secrecy code parameters and antenna properties on the achievable semantic security levels are illustrated to show directions for possible improvements to guarantee practically-acceptable security levels with PLS methods for industrial indoor THz-wireless communication applications.
Security against eavesdropping is one of the key concerns in the design of any communication system. Many common considerations of the security of a wireless communication channel rely on comparing the signal level measured by Bob (the intended receiver) to that accessible to Eve (an eavesdropper). Frameworks such as Wyner's wiretap model ensure the security of a link, in an average sense, when Bob's signal-to-noise ratio exceeds Eve's. Unfortunately, because these guarantees rely on statistical assumptions about noise, Eve can still occasionally succeed in decoding information. The goal of achieving exactly zero probability of intercept over an engineered region of the broadcast sector, which we term absolute security, remains elusive. Here, we describe the first architecture for a wireless link which provides absolute security. Our approach relies on the inherent properties of broadband and high-gain antennas, and is therefore ideally suited for implementation in millimeter-wave and terahertz wireless systems, where such antennas will generally be employed. We exploit spatial minima of the antenna pattern at different frequencies, the union of which defines a wide region where Eve is guaranteed to fail regardless of her computational capabilities, and regardless of the noise in the channels. Unlike conventional zero-forcing beam forming methods, we show that, for realistic assumptions about the antenna configuration and power budget, this absolute security guarantee can be achieved over most possible eavesdropper locations. Since we use relatively simple frequency-multiplexed coding, together with the underlying physics of a diffracting aperture, this idea is broadly applicable in many contexts.
Security against eavesdropping is one of the key concerns in the design of any communication system. Many common considerations of the security of a wireless communication channel rely on comparing the signal level measured by Bob (the intended receiver) to that accessible to Eve (a single eavesdropper). Frameworks such as Wyner's wiretap model ensure the security of a link, in an average sense, when Bob's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) exceeds Eve's. Unfortunately, because these guarantees rely on the noise realizations at Eve, statistically, Eve can still occasionally succeed in decoding information. The goal of achievingexactly zeroprobability of intercept over an engineered region of the broadcast sector, which we term absolute security, remains elusive. Here, we describe the first architecture for a wireless link with a single eavesdropper, that provides absolute security. I.e., a cryptographic deterministic and non-probabilistic security approach that does not rely on statistical assumptions about noise, shared secure key, or Eve's computational power. Our approach relies on the inherent properties of broadband and high-gain antennas, and is therefore ideally suited for implementation in millimeter-wave and terahertz wireless systems, where such antennas will generally be employed. We exploit spatial minima of the antenna pattern at different frequencies, the union of which defines a wide region where Eve is guaranteed to fail regardless of her computational capabilities, and regardless of the noise in the channels. Unlike conventional zero-forcing beam forming methods, we show that, for realistic assumptions about the antenna configuration and power budget, this absolute security guarantee can be achieved over most possible eavesdropper locations. Since we use relatively simple frequency-multiplexed coding, together with the underlying physics of a diffracting aperture, this idea is broadly applicable in many contexts.
Physical layer security (PLS) is a new paradigm aiming at securing communications between legitimate parties at the physical layer. Conventionally, achieving confidentiality in communication networks relies on cryptographic techniques such as public-key cryptography, secret-key distribution and symmetric encryption. Such techniques are deemed secure based on the assumption of limited computational abilities of a wiretapper. Given the relentless progress in computational capacities and the dynamic topology and proliferation of modern wireless networks, the relevance of the previous techniques in securing communications is more and more questionable and less and less reliable. In contrast to this paradigm, PLS does not assume a specific computational power at any eavesdropper, its premise to guarantee provable security via employing channel coding techniques at the physical layer exploiting the inherent randomness in most communication systems. In this dissertation, we investigate a particular aspect of PLS, which is secret-key agreement, also known as secret-sharing. In this setup, two legitimate parties try to distill a secret-key via the observation of correlated signals through a noisy wireless channel, in the presence of an eavesdropper who must be kept ignorant of the secret-key. Additionally, a noiseless public channel is made available to the legitimate parties to exchange public messages that are also accessible to the eavesdropper. Recall that key agreement is an important aspect toward realizing secure communications in the sense that the key can be used in a one-time pad scheme to send the confidential message. In the first part, our focus is on secret-sharing over Rayleigh fading quasi-static channels. We study the fundamental relationship relating the probability of error and a given target secret-key rate in the high power regime. This is characterized through the diversity multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) concept, that we define for our model and then characterize it. We show that the impact of the secrecy constraint is to reduce the effective number of transmit antennas by the number of antennas at the eavesdropper. Toward this characterization, we provide several schemes achieving the DMT and we highlight disparities between coding for the wiretap channel and coding for secret-key agreement. In the second part of the present work, we consider a fast-fading setting in which the wireless channels change during each channel use. We consider a correlated environment where transmit, legitimate receiver and eavesdropper antennas are correlated. We characterize the optimal strategy achieving the highest secret-key rate. We also identify the impact of correlation matrices and illustrate our analysis with various numerical results. Finally, we study the system from an energy-efficiency point of view and evaluate relevant metrics as the minimum energy required for sharing a secret-key bit and the wideband slope.
The current research on physical layer security is far from implementations in practical networks, arguably due to impractical assumptions in the literature and the limited applicability of physical layer security. Aiming to reduce the gap between theory and practice, this thesis focuses on wireless physical layer security towards practical assumptions and requirements. In the first half of the thesis, we reduce the dependence of physical layer security on impractical assumptions. The secrecy enhancements and analysis based on impractical assumptions cannot lead to any true guarantee of secrecy in practical networks. The current study of physical layer security was often based on the idealized assumption of perfect channel knowledge on both legitimate users and eavesdroppers. We study the impact of channel estimation errors on secure transmission designs. We investigate the practical scenarios where both the transmitter and the receiver have imperfect channel state information (CSI). Our results show how the optimal transmission design and the achievable throughput vary with the amount of knowledge on the eavesdropper's channel. Apart from the assumption of perfect CSI, the analysis of physical layer security often ideally assumed the number of eavesdropper antennas to be known. We develop an innovative approach to study secure communication systems without knowing the number of eavesdropper antennas by introducing the concept of spatial constraint into physical layer security. That is, the eavesdropper is assumed to have a limited spatial region to place (possibly an infinite number of) antennas. We show that a non-zero secrecy rate is achievable with the help of a friendly jammer, even if the eavesdropper places an infinite number of antennas in its spatial region. In the second half of the thesis, we improve the applicability of physical layer security. The current physical layer security techniques to achieve confidential broadcasting were limited to application in single-cell systems. The primary challenge to achieve confidential broadcasting in the multi-cell network is to deal with not only the inter-cell but also the intra-cell information leakage and interference. To tackle this challenge, we design linear precoders performing confidential broadcasting in multi-cell networks. We optimize the precoder designs to maximize the secrecy sum rate with based on the large-system analysis. Finally, we improve the applicability of physical layer security from a fundamental aspect. The analysis of physical layer security based on the existing secrecy metric was often not applicable in practical networks. We propose new metrics for evaluating the secrecy of transmissions over fading channels to address the practical limitations of using existing secrecy metrics for such evaluations. The first metric establishes a link between the concept of secrecy outage and the eavesdropper's ability to decode confidential messages. The second metric provides an error-probability-based secrecy metric which is often 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 enable one to appropriately design secure communication systems with different views on how secrecy is measured.
The wireless channel is inherently an open medium which exposes wireless communication users to the risk of interception. The vulnerabilities of the wireless channel have led to the search for innovative and efficient security solutions at different levels of the network protocol. In particular, the physical layer level allows for implementing some security functions, such as key generation and exchange, by exploiting the intrinsic randomness of the wireless communication channel. In this paper, we analyze the effect of wireless channel and of antenna characteristics on physical layer security (PLS) key generation. The aim is to put in evidence the relation between physical quantities, such as radio channel characteristics or antenna directivity, with higher level secrecy performance indicators, such as the key mismatch between the different communication nodes and the key randomness. For this purpose, we developed a comprehensive numerical model, which implements all the different steps, from signal generation and wireless propagation modeling to key generation through spectral quantization. The reported results show that the multipath richness of the radio channel, as in outdoor urban scenarios, improves the PLS secrecy performances with respect to simpler propagation scenarios. Moreover, we show that the use of more directive antennas in the legitimate communication link improves secrecy. An opposite effect is achieved when the directivity of the eavesdropper antenna is increased, thus improving its ability to perform passive attacks.
The terahertz (THz) band is expected to become a key technology to meet the ever-increasing traffic demand for future 6G wireless communications, and a lot of efforts have been paid to develop its capacity. However, few studies have been concerned with the transmission security of such ultra-high-speed THz wireless links. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate the physical layer security (PLS) of a THz communication system in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers and beam scattering. The method of moments (MoM) was adopted so that the eavesdroppers' channel influenced by the PEC can be characterized. To establish a secure link, the traditional beamforming and artificial noise (AN) beamforming were considered as transmission schemes for comparison. For both schemes, we analyzed their secrecy transmission probability (STP) and ergodic secrecy capacity (ESC) in non-colluding and colluding cases, respectively. Numerical results show that eavesdroppers can indeed degrade the secrecy performance by changing the size or the location of the PEC, while the AN beamforming technique can be an effective candidate to counterbalance this adverse effect.