Key derivation from the physical layer features of the communication channels is a promising approach which can help the key management and security enhancement in communication networks. In this paper, we consider a key generation technique that quantizes the received signal phase to obtain the secret keys. We then study the effect of a jamming attack on this system. The jammer is an active attacker that tries to make a disturbance in the key derivation procedure and changes the phase of the received signal by transmitting an adversary signal. We evaluate the effect of jamming on the security performance of the system and show the ways to improve this performance. Our numerical results show that more phase quantization regions limit the probability of successful attacks.
Key derivation from the physical layer features of the communication channels is a promising approach which can help the key management and security enhancement in communication networks. In this paper, we consider a key generation technique that quantizes the received signal phase to obtain the secret keys. We then study the effect of a jamming attack on this system. The jammer is an active attacker that tries to make a disturbance in the key derivation procedure and changes the phase of the received signal by transmitting an adversary signal. We evaluate the effect of jamming on the security performance of the system and show the ways to improve this performance. Our numerical results show that more phase quantization regions limit the probability of successful attacks.
Lightweight session key agreement schemes are expected to play a central role in building Internet of things (IoT) security in sixth-generation (6G) networks. A well-established approach deriving from the physical layer is a secret key generation (SKG) from shared randomness (in the form of wireless fading coefficients). However, although practical, SKG schemes have been shown to be vulnerable to active attacks over the initial "advantage distillation" phase, throughout which estimates of the fading coefficients are obtained at the legitimate users. In fact, by injecting carefully designed signals during this phase, a man-in-the-middle (MiM) attack could manipulate and control part of the reconciled bits and thus render SKG vulnerable to brute force attacks. Alternatively, a denial of service attack can be mounted by a reactive jammer. In this paper, we investigate the impact of injection and jamming attacks during the advantage distillation in a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system. First, we show that a MiM attack can be mounted as long as the attacker has one extra antenna with respect to the legitimate users, and we propose a pilot randomization scheme that allows the legitimate users to successfully reduce the injection attack to a less harmful jamming attack. Secondly, by taking a game-theoretic approach we evaluate the optimal strategies available to the legitimate users in the presence of reactive jammers.
The broadcast nature of wireless communications makes the propagation medium vulnerable to security attacks such as eavesdropping and jamming from adversarial or unauthorized users. Applying physical layer secrecy approaches will enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers, without using any secret keys. However, physical layer security approaches are typically feasible only when the source-eavesdropper channel is weaker than the source-destination channel. Cooperative jamming can be used to overcome this challenge and increase the secrecy rate. In this paper, the security of two-phase relaying system with multiple intermediate nodes and in the presence of an eavesdropper is investigated. To enhance the system secrecy rate, a joint cooperative beamforming and jamming combined with relay and jammer selections is proposed. In phase I, the source node broadcasts a signal to relays while three intermediate nodes (which act as jammers) help the source node by transmitting random jamming signals to confuse the eavesdropper. Since the friendly (cooperative) jammers create interference for both the intended relays and the eavesdropper, optimal beamforming is applied such that no interference is caused at two preselected desired relays (that are going to receive the confidential massage in phase I). In phase II, two preselected relays transmit the source message with beamforming coefficients such that the received signal at the eavesdropper is completely nulled out. Our goal in this paper is to minimize the received SNR at the eavesdropper while increasing it at the destination as much as possible by applying different methods such as cooperative beamforming, cooperative jamming and relay selection. To avoid operational complexity, we consider the minimum number of intermediate nodes that are necessary without losing the performance. Numerical results demonstrate the advantage of our proposed scheme compared with the scheme with no cooperative jamming.
Physical layer security has been recently recognized as a promising new design paradigm to provide security in wireless networks. In addition to the existing conventional cryptographic methods, physical layer security exploits the dynamics of fading channels to enhance secured wireless links. In this approach, jamming plays a key role by generating noise signals to confuse the potential eavesdroppers, and significantly improves quality and reliability of secure communications between legitimate terminals. This article presents theoretical limits and practical designs of jamming approaches for physical layer security. In particular, the theoretical limits explore the achievable secrecy rates of user cooperation-based jamming whilst the centralized and game theoretic-based precoding techniques are reviewed for practical implementations. In addition, the emerging wireless energy harvesting techniques are exploited to harvest the required energy to transmit jamming signals. Future directions of these approaches and the associated research challenges are also briefly outlined.
The topic of physical layer key agreement in Gaussian block fading channels in the presence of active adversaries is investigated in the present contribution. Frequency hopping versus frequency spreading are studied as potential defence strategies against denial of service (DoS) attacks in the form of jamming. We begin by investigating the optimal power allocation policy for the jammer - in the case of frequency spreading - when side information is available. Through numerical evaluations it is shown that effect of the availability of side information on the jammer's impact is minimal. Next, the competitive interaction between the legitimate nodes and the jammer is formulated as a one-shot zero-sum game; it is found that under short term power constraints, the legitimate nodes should not always employ frequency hopping while the jammer should always use frequency spreading. This result contradicts the common practice of using frequency hopping to defend against jamming attacks in standard wireless systems.
Abstract: Physical layer key generation, leveraging the reciprocity and randomness of wireless fading channels, has garnered significant research interest in recent years. While theoretical studies have demonstrated its potential to generate informationtheoretically secure keys, challenges remain in translating theory into practice. This paper provides an overview of the physical layer key generation process and discusses its practical challenges. Various passive and active attacks are analyzed and evaluated through numerical studies. A new key generation scheme using random probing signals and combining usergenerated randomness with channel randomness is introduced to counteract active attacks. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves higher security strength than existing schemes using constant probing signals under active attacks. Secret-key generation relying on wireless channel reciprocity is an intriguing solution as it can be efficiently implemented at the physical layer of emerging wireless communication networks, while providing information-theoretic security guarantees. In this paper, we investigate and compare the secret-key capacity based on the sampling of the entire complex channel state information (CSI) or only its envelope, the received signal strength (RSS).
Due to the rapid development of wireless communication technology and widespread proliferation of wireless user equipment, wireless networks become indispensable for lots of applications in daily life.The broadcast nature of wireless medium makes information exchange in such networks vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks from malicious eavesdroppers, resulting in network security one of the major concerns for system designers.Physical layer (PHY) security has been proposed as one promising technology to provide security guarantee for wireless communications, owing to its unique advantages over traditional cryptography-based mechanisms, like an everlasting security guarantee and no need for costly secret key distribution/management and complex encryption algorithms.This thesis therefore focuses on the PHY security performance study for wireless networks with cooperative jamming (a typical PHY security technique), where non-transmitting helper nodes generate jamming signals to counteract eavesdropping attacks.We first explore the PHY security performances of small-scale wireless networks with non-colluding (i.e., independently-operating) eavesdroppers, for which we study iii not only for his warm encouragement and thoughtful guidance in my research, but also for his financial support that makes me able to fully concentrate on my research.He has been teaching me, both consciously and unconsciously, the important skills required to be a good researcher and the great personality traits that make a better man.It is a great honor for me to be one of his Ph.D. students and the Ph.D. experience under his supervision is definitely life-changing for me.I would also like to thank Professor Jiang's wife, Mrs Li, for her meticulous care and support for my life.I could not have imagined how hard my life in Hakodate would be without her help.