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IEEE Communications Magazine

Safeguarding 5G wireless communication networks using physical layer security

Nan Yang, Lifeng Wang, Giovanni Geraci, Maged Elkashlan, Jinhong Yuan, Marco Di Renzo

Published Apr 1, 2015• 905 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The fifth generation (5G) network will serve as a key enabler in meeting the continuously increasing demands for future wireless applications, including an ultra-high data rate, an ultrawide radio coverage, an ultra-large number of devices, and an ultra-low latency. This article examines security, a pivotal issue in the 5G network where wireless transmissions are inherently vulnerable to security breaches. Specifically, we focus on physical layer security, which safeguards data confidentiality by exploiting the intrinsic randomness of the communications medium and reaping the benefits offered by the disruptive technologies to 5G. Among various technologies, the three most promising ones are discussed: heterogenous networks, massive multiple-input multiple-output, and millimeter wave. On the basis of the key principles of each technology, we identify the rich opportunities and the outstanding challenges that security designers must tackle. Such an identification is expected to decisively advance the understanding of future physical layer security.

DOI
10.1109/mcom.2015.7081071

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The fifth generation (5G) network will serve as a key enabler in meeting the continuously increasing demands for future wireless applications, including an ultra-high data rate, an ultrawide radio coverage, an ultra-large number of devices, and an ultra-low latency. This article examines security, a pivotal issue in the 5G network where wireless transmissions are inherently vulnerable to security breaches. Specifically, we focus on physical layer security, which safeguards data confidentiality by exploiting the intrinsic randomness of the communications medium and reaping the benefits offered by the disruptive technologies to 5G. Among various technologies, the three most promising ones are discussed: heterogenous networks, massive multiple-input multiple-output, and millimeter wave. On the basis of the key principles of each technology, we identify the rich opportunities and the outstanding challenges that security designers must tackle. Such an identification is expected to decisively advance the understanding of future physical layer security.
The fifth generation (5G) network would be a key facilitator to keeping up to the future wireless application demands such as ultra-high data rate, ultra-wide radio coverage, ultra — low latency, large number of devices connected etc. Security is a crucial issue in the 5G network as wireless transmissions have the innate quality of vulnerability towards unfriendly breach or hacks. In this paper, security issue in the 5G network, specifically the physical layer security, has been analyzed. The physical layer safeguards confidentiality of data by capitalizing on the inherent random nature of the communication medium. There are various technologies prevalent in 5G, the three most prominent ones-heterogeneous networks, massive multiple-input multiple-output, and millimeter wave have been considered and discussed. The potential areas for improvement and issues in each of the technologies have been identified and analyzed. This analysis would help in better understanding of physical layer security in the future.
Physical layer security which safeguards data confidentiality based on the information-theoretic approaches has received significant research interest recently. The key idea behind physical layer security is to utilize the intrinsic randomness of the transmission channel to guarantee the security in physical layer. The evolution toward 5G wireless communications poses new challenges for physical layer security research. This paper provides a latest survey of the physical layer security research on various promising 5G technologies, including physical layer security coding, massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, full duplex technology, and so on. Technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends of physical layer security in 5G and beyond are discussed.
Physical-layer security is emerging approach that can benefit conventional encryption methods. The main idea of physical layer security is to take advantage of the features of the wireless channel and its impairments in order to ensure secure communication in the physical layer. This paper provides a comprehensive review of information-theoretic measures of the secrecy performance in physical layer security. In addition, our work survey research about physical layer security over several enabling 5G technologies, such as massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, and full-duplex, including the key concepts of each of the aforementioned technologies. Finally, future research directions and technical challenges of physical layer security are identified.
Physical-layer security is emerging approach that can benefit conventional encryption methods. The main idea of physical layer security is to take advantage of the features of the wireless channel and its impairments in order to ensure secure communication in the physical layer. This paper provides a comprehensive review of information-theoretic measures of the secrecy performance in physical layer security. In addition, our work survey research about physical layer security over several enabling 5G technologies, such as massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, and full-duplex, including the key concepts of each of the aforementioned technologies. Finally, future research directions and technical challenges of physical layer security are identified.
Due to the broadcast nature of wireless radio propagation channels, 5G wireless networks face serious security threats. Security mechanisms that leverage physical layer characteristics have been considered as potential complements to enhance 5G wireless network security. This article proposes physical layer security enhancements to defend against security attacks from the three most significant aspects: wireless secure communication, physical layer assisted authentication and secret key distribution. By integrating physical layer security with novel techniques and application scenarios in 5G communication, we elaborate several promising strategies, including massive MIMO beamforming with security code communication, self-adaptive mobile and cooperative secure communication with dynamic channel prediction, physical layer assisted authentication, malicious node detection and key generation of massive MIMO millimeter wave system. Research opportunities and future challenges are further discussed.
The eight articles in this special section provide the latest survey of physical layer security research on various promising techniques for 5G era and beyond networks. The number of mobile-connected wireless devices is quickly growing and will reach 11 billion by 2020, exceeding the world’s projected population at that time (7.8 billion). Meanwhile, the demand for wireless data transmission in futuristic wireless networks is growing exponentially. For example, a mobile user is expected to download approximately 1 terabyte of data on average annually by 2020. Cutting-edge wireless-enabled applications, such as e-healthcare, augmented reality, Tactile Internet, and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), are becoming a reality, which is triggering an explosion of mobile data traffic, a rapid increase in the number of end-devices, massive instantaneous end-to-end connections, and high-reliability low-latency services. It will be an extremely daunting task for fourth generation (4G) networks to meet the ever-increasing communication needs, and the aforementioned features have been recognized as essential requirements for the fifth generation (5G) era and beyond.