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IEEE Access

SecLight: A New and Practical VLC Eavesdropping-Resilient Framework for IoT Devices

Xiangyu Liu, Xuetao Wei, Lei Guo, Yejun Liu

Published Jan 1, 2019• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The blooming of the Internet of Things (IoT) needs a communication infrastructure to allow connecting a wide range of devices. Visible light communication (VLC) provides an attractive solution for these IoT devices. However, the broadcast nature makes the VLC prone to be exposed in the reach of eavesdroppers, which undesirably impairs the IoT system security. The negative factors in practical use, such as light reflection, light intensity, channel correlation, and channel estimation error, remain less touched. In this paper, we propose the SecLight to support both the multiple-input single-output VLC (MISO-VLC) and the single-input single-output VLC (SISO-VLC) IoT devices. A random time reversal scheme is first proposed to automatically steer the SISO-VLC signal to the legitimate receivers by scrambling the eavesdropper's channel. Then, we mathematically analyze the impact of channel correlation and channel estimation error inherent in MISO-VLC system and propose an effective approach to alleviate the decreased secrecy capacity by introducing the Karhunen-LoEve transform and equivalent artificial noise. Through extensive evaluation, the proposed SecLight framework proves to be able to aggravate the bit error rate of eavesdroppers, even when a malicious interception is intended while holding the secrecy capacity above 3 bit/s/Hz. Overall, our results demonstrate that our framework SecLight is a promising solution for enhancing the security of the IoT devices.

DOI
10.1109/access.2019.2897565

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The blooming of the Internet of Things (IoT) needs a communication infrastructure to allow connecting a wide range of devices. Visible light communication (VLC) provides an attractive solution for these IoT devices. However, the broadcast nature makes the VLC prone to be exposed in the reach of eavesdroppers, which undesirably impairs the IoT system security. The negative factors in practical use, such as light reflection, light intensity, channel correlation, and channel estimation error, remain less touched. In this paper, we propose the SecLight to support both the multiple-input single-output VLC (MISO-VLC) and the single-input single-output VLC (SISO-VLC) IoT devices. A random time reversal scheme is first proposed to automatically steer the SISO-VLC signal to the legitimate receivers by scrambling the eavesdropper's channel. Then, we mathematically analyze the impact of channel correlation and channel estimation error inherent in MISO-VLC system and propose an effective approach to alleviate the decreased secrecy capacity by introducing the Karhunen-LoEve transform and equivalent artificial noise. Through extensive evaluation, the proposed SecLight framework proves to be able to aggravate the bit error rate of eavesdroppers, even when a malicious interception is intended while holding the secrecy capacity above 3 bit/s/Hz. Overall, our results demonstrate that our framework SecLight is a promising solution for enhancing the security of the IoT devices.
The inherent broadcast characteristics of the visible light communication (VLC) channel makes VLC downlinks susceptible to unauthorized terminals in many actual VLC scenarios, such as offices and shopping centers. This paper considers a multiple-input-single-output (MISO) VLC scenario with multiple light fixtures acting as the transmitter, a VLC receiver as the legitimate user, and an eavesdropper attempting to intercept the undisclosed information. To improve the confidentiality of VLC links, a physical-layer anti-eavesdropping framework is proposed to obscure the unauthorized eavesdroppers and diminishes their capability of inferring the information through smart beamforming over the MISO VLC wiretap channel. To cope with the intractable problem of finding the theoretically optimal solution of the secrecy rate and utility for the MISO VLC wiretapping channel, a reinforcement learning (RL)-based VLC beamforming control scheme is proposed to achieve the optimal beamforming policy against the eavesdropper. Furthermore, a deep RL-based VLC beamforming control scheme is proposed to handle the curse of dimensionality for both observation space and action space and avoid the quantization error of the RL-based algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed learning-based VLC beamforming control schemes can significantly decrease the bit error rate of the legitimate receiver and increase the secrecy rate and utility of the anti-eavesdropping MISO VLC system, compared with the benchmark strategy.
Visible light communication (VLC) is a new enabling communication technology that exploits illumination devices, mostly high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs), to establish high-speed short-range wireless communication links. VLC is a promising technology that has gained significant interest in the last decade due to its high data rates and low cost of deployment. Although VLC systems are less susceptible to eavesdropping than RF systems since light does not penetrate through walls, they become as vulnerable as their radio-frequency (RF) counterparts when their nodes are deployed in public areas and/or when there are large windows. Thus, security for VLC systems is as important as it is for RF systems. Security in wireless communication systems may be enhanced by introducing physical layer security (PLS) techniques. In fact, PLS has been applied to a wide range of RF applications in an effort to improve the overall security by complementing existing cryptography-based security techniques. The potential of PLS stems from its ability of leveraging features of the surrounding environments via sophisticated encoding techniques at the physical layer. Indeed, PLS schemes can be applied in the same spirit to VLC systems. \n \nThere exist many specificities that characterize VLC systems, leading to major differences compared to RF systems. Specifically, VLC channels are quasi-static and real valued channels, which seemingly simplify the application of PLS techniques. However, due to the limited dynamic range of the LEDs, VLC systems impose an amplitude constraint on the channel input, which makes unbounded inputs not admissible. As a result, the performance of PLS schemes must be revised in the VLC context due to its different operating constraints. \n \nWe propose in this thesis enhancing the secrecy performance of VLC systems through PLS techniques. Firstly, we consider the degraded single-input single-output (SISO) VLC system. We derive achievable secrecy rates using continuous and discrete input distributions and we demonstrate the substantial improvement in the secrecy performance by using discrete distributions. Secondly, we consider the multiple-input single-output (MISO) VLC systems. We consider at first the case of randomly located eavesdroppers, in which we develop an associated achievable secrecy rate and we develop a beamforming-based precoding scheme that enhances the secrecy performance of this class of systems. In the second part, we consider the multi-user (MU) MISO broadcast system with confidential messages and we develop linear precoding schemes that enhance typical secrecy performance measures, including the max-min fairness and the weighted fairness. Finally, we consider the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) VLC system. We derive achievable secrecy rates using continuous and discrete distributions and we develop linear precoding schemes that improve its secrecy performance.
This paper considers improving the confidentiality of visible light communication (VLC) links within the framework of physical-layer security. We study a VLC scenario with one transmitter, one legitimate receiver, and one eavesdropper. The transmitter has multiple light sources, while the legitimate and unauthorized receivers have a single photodetector, each. We characterize secrecy rates achievable via transmit beamforming over the multiple-input, single-output (MISO) VLC wiretap channel. For VLC systems, intensity modulation (IM) via light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is the most practical transmission scheme. Because of the limited dynamic range of typical LEDs, the modulating signal must satisfy certain amplitude constraints. Hence, we begin with deriving lower and upper bounds on the secrecy capacity of the scalar Gaussian wiretap channel subject to amplitude constraints. Then, we utilize beamforming to obtain a closed-form secrecy rate expression for the MISO wiretap channel. Finally, we propose a robust beamforming scheme to consider the scenario wherein information about the eavesdropper's channel is imperfect due to location uncertainty. A typical application of the proposed scheme is to secure the communication link when the eavesdropper is expected to exist within a specified area. The performance is measured in terms of the worst-case secrecy rate guaranteed under all admissible realizations of the eavesdropper's channel.
We study in this paper the secrecy performance of the multiple-input single-output (MISO) visible light communication (VLC) channel in the presence of randomly located eavesdroppers. We consider a system model comprising a transmitter, equipped with multiple fixtures of LEDs, one legitimate receiver equipped with a single photo-diode (PD) and a group of randomly located (and colluding) eavesdroppers, each equipped with a single PD. We derive a closed-form expression for the average achievable secrecy rate as a function of the beamforming vector, the input distribution, and the location density of the eavesdroppers using stochastic geometry. We then investigate the optimal beamformer that maximizes the average achievable secrecy rate. We corroborate the analytical results through Monte Carlo simulations and we demonstrate substantial improvements provided by the proposed scheme over existing ones.
This paper considers secure transmission over the visible light communication (VLC) channel by the means of physical-layer security techniques. In particular, we consider achievable secrecy rates of the multiple-input, single-output (MISO) wiretap VLC channel. The VLC channel is modeled as a deterministic and real-valued Gaussian channel subject to amplitude constraints. We utilize null-steering and artificial noise strategies to achieve positive secrecy rates when the eavesdropper's channel state information (CSI) is perfectly known and entirely unknown to the transmitter, respectively. In both scenarios, the legitimate receiver's CSI is available to the transmitter. We numerically evaluate achievable secrecy rates under typical VLC scenarios and show that simple precoding techniques can significantly improve the confidentiality of VLC links.
This paper studies the design of energy-efficient artificial noise (AN) schemes in the context of physical layer security in visible light communications (VLC). Two different transmission schemes termed selective AN-aided single-input single-output (SISO) and AN-aided multiple-input single-output (MISO) are examined and compared in terms of secrecy energy efficiency (SEE). In the former, the closest LED luminaire to the legitimate user (Bob) is the information-bearing signal’s transmitter. At the same time, the rest of the luminaries act as jammers transmitting AN to degrade the channels of eavesdroppers (Eves). In the latter, the information-bearing signal and AN are combined and transmitted by all luminaries. When Eves’ CSI is unknown, an indirect design to improve the SEE is formulated by maximizing Bob’s channel’s energy efficiency. A low-complexity design based on the zero-forcing criterion is also proposed. In the case of known Eves’ CSI, we study the design that maximizes the minimum SEE among those corresponding to all eavesdroppers. At their respective optimal SEEs, simulation results reveal that when Eves’ CSI is unknown, the selective AN-aided SISO transmission can archive twice as good SEE as the AN-aided MISO does. In contrast, when Eves’ CSI is known, the AN-aided MISO outperforms by 30%.