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Secure underwater acoustic communication based on a robust key generation scheme

Yicong Liu, Jiwu Jing, Jun Yang

Published Oct 1, 2008• 40 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Underwater acoustic communications have found applications in many fields with great developments. Thus, the demand for security of such communications is rapidly growing. Two parties in the communication, after authentication, generally use a secure symmetric key to encrypt all the data they transmit. Thus, an efficient key generation algorithm is in urgent need to guarding the privacy of the communication data. This paper presents a novel key generation system which is easy to be implemented, efficient in computation and communication, and robust to the spatio-temporal variable ocean environments. Unlike those conventional solutions, by exploiting reciprocity, deep fades, randomness extractor and robust secure fuzzy information reconciliators, which is first introduced by us in this paper, channel characteristics are used to generate the key in our solution.

DOI
10.1109/icosp.2008.4697498

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Underwater acoustic communications have found applications in many fields with great developments. Thus, the demand for security of such communications is rapidly growing. Two parties in the communication, after authentication, generally use a secure symmetric key to encrypt all the data they transmit. Thus, an efficient key generation algorithm is in urgent need to guarding the privacy of the communication data. This paper presents a novel key generation system which is easy to be implemented, efficient in computation and communication, and robust to the spatio-temporal variable ocean environments. Unlike those conventional solutions, by exploiting reciprocity, deep fades, randomness extractor and robust secure fuzzy information reconciliators, which is first introduced by us in this paper, channel characteristics are used to generate the key in our solution.
With the increasing emphasis on safeguarding maritime sovereignty and developing marine resources, the security of underwater acoustic communication has risen to a new level of importance. Given the complex environmental challenges faced by underwater acoustic channels, this paper proposes an NTRU-based key encapsulation scheme designed to ensure secure and reliable underwater data transmission, while maintaining privacy and integrity. In the public–private key pair generation phase, a ring sampling technique is employed to generate a compact NTRU trapdoor, which not only guarantees security but also effectively reduces the communication overhead. During the encapsulation phase, underwater acoustic channel characteristics during communication are introduced as temporary identity information to ensure the confidentiality and reliability of the key encapsulation mechanism. Furthermore, the traditional key encapsulation mechanism is extended by integrating a digital signature process, where the encapsulated ciphertext is signed. The use of digital signature technology verifies the authenticity and integrity of the transmitted data, ensuring that communication data remain secure and unaltered in complex underwater acoustic environments. Finally, we conduct a rigorous correctness analysis and security proofs, demonstrating that the proposed scheme achieves chosen ciphertext security, while meeting the demands of low bandwidth and limited computational capacity in underwater acoustic communication.
Preestablished secret keys are often used to encrypt and decrypt data in communication systems, including underwater acoustic (UWA) systems. However, once the keys are compromised, the communication is not secure. It is desirable to establish shared secrets in the field. One method is to generate secret keys dynamically using correlated channel measurements, which relies on the randomness in the environment and does not require the secrecy of information exchanged during the process. We explore this concept in UWA channels and lake tests show that secret keys can be dynamically generated based on the channel frequency responses.
Symmetric cryptography is the de-facto approach to information security for ad-hoc underwater acoustic networks. The requirement is that all network nodes possess the same cryptographic keys and key distribution that happens offline. Thus, it is hardly possible to include a new keyless node during network operation. In addition, online key replenishment is an open problem. In this article, we tackle key distribution/replenishment by formulating a new protocol that generates a key between two trusted underwater acoustic nodes (Alice and Bob) without the need to exchange the key itself. The proposed protocol initially extracts common acoustic channel features between Alice and Bob after some signal exchanges. Then, each party uses these features to generate his/her own secret bits via a random sequence generator. To correct any differences in their secret bits, we propose two reconciliation methods that employ Reed–Solomon codes. At the last step of the protocol, a 256-bit cryptographic key is generated by feeding the reconciled secret bit string to the Secure Hash Algorithm 3. We evaluate the key generation rate of the proposed protocol with real acoustic data recorded from a littoral environment, in which Alice and Bob exchanged 915 channel probes over different link geometries. To assess security performance, we invent a passive eavesdropper, Eve, who is able to simulate the acoustic link between Alice and Bob. She uses her simulated channels and the same protocol to generate her keys. Our analysis demonstrates a tradeoff between the key generation rate of Alice and Bob and Eve's ability to extract the same key. Our best result shows that Alice and Bob can independently generate 567 keys out of 915 attempts while Eve does not have access to any of the keys.
Preestablished secret keys are often used to encrypt and decrypt data in communication systems, which are not secure once the keys are compromised. One desirable method is to generate secret keys dynamically using correlated channel measurements. We explore this concept in underwater acoustic (UWA) channels, and present a protocol that can generate secret keys dynamically based on the channel frequency response (CFR) in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing systems. The multi-bit quantization is carried out on the amplitude of each tone, and the Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem codes are used for information reconciliation. Part of the protocol was implemented in lake tests, and multiple data sets were collected. The lake test results verify that the amplitude of CFR can be used as a randomness source for key generation in UWA channels, and we also find the low correlation between the mutual channels of the legitimate users. Based on the lake test results, we incorporate two modules into the protocol for performance improvement. The first module employs the adaptively weighted probing signaling to increase the channel correlation, and the second module of block-sliced key verification is used to deal with channel dynamics and increase the key agreement probability. The simulation results demonstrate the improved performance of the enhanced protocol.
Communication in an underwater environment presents many challenges, due to its unique characteristics of throughput, delay, and error rates. The acoustic channels commonly used for underwater communication have inherent broadcast characteristics and require non-trivial solutions to achieve secure and authenticated communications. The complexity of security challenges is further increased by the ongoing transition to quantum-resistant cryptography. Our paper discusses post-quantum cryptographic solutions for underwater broadcast communication scenarios. Specifically, we present and analyze solutions for sender authentication and key management based on private key cryptography and discuss perfect forward secrecy of communication keys, taking into consideration the constraints of the underwater environment.
With the growing use of underwater acoustic communications and the recent adoption of standards in this field, it is becoming increasingly important to secure messages against eavesdroppers. In this paper, we focus on a physical-layer security solution to generate sequences of random bits (keys) between two devices (Alice and Bob) belonging to an underwater acoustic network (UWAN); the key must remain secret to a passive eavesdropper (Eve) not belonging to the UWAN. Our method is based on measuring the propagation delay of the underwater acoustic channel over multiple hops of the UWAN: this harvests the randomness in the UWAN topology and turns the slow sound propagation in water into an advantage against eavesdropping. Our key generation protocol includes a route discovery handshake, whereby all UWAN devices at intermediate hops accumulate their message processing delays. This enables Alice and Bob to compute the actual propagation delays along each route and to map such information to a sequence of bits. Finally, from these bit sequences, Alice and Bob obtain a secret key. We analyze the performance of the protocol theoretically and assess it via extensive simulations and field experiments.