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Entropy

A Review of Physical Layer Security Techniques for Internet of Things: Challenges and Solutions

Li Sun, Qinghe Du

Published Sep 23, 2018• 129 citations
Publisher

Abstract

With the uninterrupted revolution of communications technologies and the great-leap-forward development of emerging applications, the ubiquitous deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) is imperative to accommodate constantly growing user demands and market scales. Communication security is critically important for the operations of IoT. Among the communication security provisioning techniques, physical layer security (PLS), which can provide unbreakable, provable, and quantifiable secrecy from an information-theoretical point of view, has drawn considerable attention from both the academia and the industries. However, the unique features of IoT, such as low-cost, wide-range coverage, massive connection, and diversified services, impose great challenges for the PLS protocol design in IoT. In this article, we present a comprehensive review of the PLS techniques toward IoT applications. The basic principle of PLS is first briefly introduced, followed by the survey of the existing PLS techniques. Afterwards, the characteristics of IoT are identified, based on which the challenges faced by PLS protocol design are summarized. Then, three newly-proposed PLS solutions are highlighted, which match the features of IoT well and are expected to be applied in the near future. Finally, we conclude the paper and point out some further research directions.

DOI
10.3390/e20100730

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With the uninterrupted revolution of communications technologies and the great-leap-forward development of emerging applications, the ubiquitous deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) is imperative to accommodate constantly growing user demands and market scales. Communication security is critically important for the operations of IoT. Among the communication security provisioning techniques, physical layer security (PLS), which can provide unbreakable, provable, and quantifiable secrecy from an information-theoretical point of view, has drawn considerable attention from both the academia and the industries. However, the unique features of IoT, such as low-cost, wide-range coverage, massive connection, and diversified services, impose great challenges for the PLS protocol design in IoT. In this article, we present a comprehensive review of the PLS techniques toward IoT applications. The basic principle of PLS is first briefly introduced, followed by the survey of the existing PLS techniques. Afterwards, the characteristics of IoT are identified, based on which the challenges faced by PLS protocol design are summarized. Then, three newly-proposed PLS solutions are highlighted, which match the features of IoT well and are expected to be applied in the near future. Finally, we conclude the paper and point out some further research directions.
In this chapter, the physical layer security (PLS) is interrogated for Internet of things (IoT) networks. As a result of their nature, IoT networks consist of a massive number of devices. These devices are produced in compact sizes and powered with small batteries rather than a grid network. Thus, they are able to have high portability but have low computational capability. Because of these features of IoT devices, the conventional encryption/decryption-based cryptographic security methods used in the classical wireless devices fail to satisfy the security requirements of IoT networks. The main reason for this is that the requirements of these security methods are too demanding for the processing power of IoT devices and stringent to manage when these devices are deployed in a massive number. Therefore, in this chapter, the possible advantages of the PLS in IoT networks are explained. In this manner, the IoT architecture is explained and common attack types in IoT networks are reviewed. Then, the unique features of IoT networks from the PLS perspective are presented along with the possible challenges on the way. A literature review is conducted to propound the current PLS techniques used in IoT networks and the future directions are signified. As a result of this chapter, it is expected that PLS techniques in IoT networks are clarified to the reader and their future applications are encouraged.
The pervasiveness of commercial Internet of Things (IoT) around the globe is expected to reach significant levels with the upcoming sixth generation of mobile networks (6G). Throughout the past years, wireless standardization units worldwide have been prominently active in the deployment and performance optimization of such IoT networks and fusing them with current and futuristic cellular networks. Nonetheless, the openness of wireless transmissions and the forecasted overwhelm in connected devices will provoke unprecedented security leakages and vulnerabilities. In addition to the key targets of the 6G and IoT, it has been of paramount importance to cater to decent and lightweight security mechanisms in ultra-massively connected heterogeneous networks. Recently, significant efforts have been made to pave the way for the integration of physical layer security (PLS) in contemporary and futuristic networks. The primary motivation behind its deployment resides in its low complexity and ability to provide information-theoretic secure transmissions, which alleviates the complexity burden caused by implementing complex cryptographic schemes. This survey overviews the recent advancement in PLS techniques with a particular interest in its application to the Internet of Things (IoT). We review essentially recent PLS techniques aiming at ensuring message confidentiality along with node/message authentication and malicious nodes’ detection, where their corresponding application scenarios and underlying pros and cons are discussed. On top of that, we explore recent findings in the incorporation of cutting-edge technologies at the physical layer, such as non-orthogonal multiple-access, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, joint communication and sensing, and optical wireless/Terahertz communications in boosting confidentiality and authentication at the physical layer. Lastly, promising extensions and future directions are discussed based on the quantified pros and cons of each PLS category, opening up ways for timely research directions within the topic and current/future challenges faced by PLS.
5G network is expected to support massive user connections and exponentially increasing wireless services, which makes network security unprecedentedly important. Unlike traditional security-guaranteeing techniques which rely heavily on cryptographic approaches at upper layers of the protocol stack, physical-layer security (PLS) solutions fully take advantages of the characteristics of wireless channels to degrade the received signal qualities at the malicious users, and realize keyless secure transmission via signal design and signal processing techniques. PLS avoids the difficulties in the distribution and management of secret keys, and provides flexible security levels through adaptive transmission protocol design. Moreover, PLS techniques match the features of 5G networks well. Therefore, the application of PLS to 5G networks is a promising solution to address the security threats. This article presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art PLS techniques, and discusses their applications in 5G networks. We first summarize the principle and advantages of PLS techniques, and point out the reasons why PLS is suitable for 5G networks. Then, we review the existing PLS methods in literature, and highlight several PLS solutions that are expected to be applied in 5G networks. Finally, we conclude this article and figure out some further research directions.
The increasing demands for Internet of things (IoT) applications and the tremendous increase in the volume of IoT generated data bring novel challenges for the fifth generation (5G) network. Verticals such as e-Health, vehicle to everything (V2X) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) require solutions that can guarantee low latency, energy efficiency,massive connectivity, and high reliability. In particular, finding strong security mechanisms that satisfy the above is of central importance for bringing the IoT to life. \nIn this regards, employing physical layer security (PLS) methods could be greatly beneficial for IoT networks. While current security solutions rely on computational complexity, PLS is based on information theoretic proofs. By removing the need for computational power, PLS is ideally suited for resource constrained devices. In detail, PLS can ensure security using the inherit randomness already present in the physical channel. Promising schemes from the physical layer include physical unclonable functions (PUFs), which are seen as the hardware fingerprint of a device, and secret key generation (SKG) from wireless fading coefficients, which provide the wireless fingerprint of the communication channel between devices. \nThe present thesis develops several PLS-based techniques that pave the way for a new breed of latency-aware, lightweight, security protocols. In particular, the work proposes: i) a fast multi-factor authentication solution with verified security properties based on PUFs, proximity detection and SKG; ii) an authenticated encryption SKG approach that interweaves data transmission and key generation; and, iii) a set of countermeasures to man-in-the-middle and jamming attacks. Overall, PLS solutions show promising performance, especially in the context of IoT applications, therefore, the advances in this thesis should be considered for beyond-5G networks.
Short-packet communication is a key technology to support two emerging application scenarios in 5G and beyond 5G, massive machine type communication (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low-latency communication (uRLLC), which are introduced to satisfy the broader communication requirements of potential applications such as the Internet of Vehicles and industrial Internet of Things (IoT). The sharp increase in privacy data in various IoT applications has made security issues more prominent. The typical upper-layer encryption mechanism cannot fully address the security challenge considering the resource restriction of IoT terminals. In this article, we investigate secure short-packet communication from the perspective of physical layer security (PLS), which can be regarded as a promising security solution in 6G. Specifically, the state-of-the-art development of fundamental information theory of secure short-packet communications and corresponding performance evaluation criteria in fading channels are summarized. Then we review recent works, which investigate short-packet communication systems in different communication scenarios or with different security strategies from the perspective of PLS. Finally, we give future research directions and challenges.
Physical layer security (PLS) has become the kernel concept for ensuring wireless network security. The main goal of this treatise is to provide a systematic classification of key less schemes. We have classified key less PLS into code, channel adaptation and artificial noise (AN) based approaches and carried out a survey of the diverse schemes employed in literature for key less approach. Further, we have provided the advantages, observations and future directions for each of the techniques. Industry 4.0 revolution with the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to rule the next wireless era with its promising smart home, smart health care, smart retail to name a few. Therefore, we have provided a discussion on the application of key less PLS in IoT. Further, we also discuss about two emerging areas that can be employed for enhancing PLS such as Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We have also provided some of the existing security challenges in the IoT application scenario. We have also presented the open research challenges and future directions in the area of key less PLS.