Establishing secured communication among the intended users of wireless networks is a major concern. Especially, providing confidentiality is a critical requirement in a wireless communication system which is more susceptible to eavesdroppers. Prevailing cryptographic methods were proven to meet the security needs to some extent. Sophisticated encryption techniques cannot be always deployed in wireless devices, where the resources are limited. However, physical layer security is recently emerging into a promising paradigm to aid security in wireless networks by exploiting the dynamics of wireless channel. In this study, a physical layer security technique was proposed to enhance confidentiality which selects the modulation type adaptively, based on both channel signal‐to‐noise ratio and phase between transmitter and receiver. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated for two types of eavesdroppers such as random and intelligent attackers through simulations. The proposed method improves confidentiality and throughput while maintaining the targeted symbol error rate than the existing algorithms.
Establishing secured communication among the intended users of wireless networks is a major concern. Especially, providing confidentiality is a critical requirement in a wireless communication system which is more susceptible to eavesdroppers. Prevailing cryptographic methods were proven to meet the security needs to some extent. Sophisticated encryption techniques cannot be always deployed in wireless devices, where the resources are limited. However, physical layer security is recently emerging into a promising paradigm to aid security in wireless networks by exploiting the dynamics of wireless channel. In this study, a physical layer security technique was proposed to enhance confidentiality which selects the modulation type adaptively, based on both channel signal‐to‐noise ratio and phase between transmitter and receiver. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated for two types of eavesdroppers such as random and intelligent attackers through simulations. The proposed method improves confidentiality and throughput while maintaining the targeted symbol error rate than the existing algorithms.
Improving confidentiality is a main concern in most wireless transmission systems. Traditionally, confidentiality is guaranteed by means of encryption, where transmitted data are encrypted prior to transmission and only the intended receiver(s) can decrypt them. However, encryption/decryption process involves high complexity and heavy signaling in the key distribution/agreement protocols. Thus, aiming toward overcoming complexity, physical-layer security has been proposed as a promising candidate to improve confidentiality against eavesdroppers by exploiting physical-layer techniques. In this paper, we propose a physical-layer security scheme that adapts the modulation type based on the channel phase in order to secure the transmitted data. Moreover, the phase of the transmitted signal is adjusted in order to improve the immunity against eavesdroppers. The proposed scheme has been designed to achieve high robustness against channel estimation errors. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated through analysis and simulations in order to demonstrate the significant improvement in the confidentiality.
Abstract The broadcast nature of radio propagation in wireless communication has been suspected as the loopholes of passive or active attacks by unauthorized users (eavesdroppers). The physical layer security techniques operate at the lowest stack of OSI layer against conventional cryptographic approaches, operating at the upper layer. However, techniques such as channel coding, power (directional antenna and artificial noise), and spread spectrum have been (and continuously) deployed to safeguard against sophisticated attacks. Most of these deployments are theoretical, and a few are enhanced for efficient security against an intruder. In this article, a boundary technique approach is proposed and applied to the physical layer to improve its secrecy‐capacity and subdue adversary effects at the legitimate receiver. Hybrid performance metrics were adopted, and a Monte Carlo simulation was performed. The result obtained using secrecy outage probability, secrecy‐capacity, and intercept‐probability show that our proposed techniques enhance the secret transmission between the main transmitter and legitimate receiver. The simulation results were compared with the analytical methods. It was found that the channel between the transmitter and the main receiver has a better signal‐to‐noise ratio than the corresponding eavesdropper's channel. Conclusively, performance of the proposed technique is validated for applications in emerging wireless communication systems.
Physical layer security (PLS) has grown in popularity as it guarantees secure and reliable communication between wireless devices without restricting the ability of data analysts to eavesdrop. PLS benefits from the randomization property of the wireless channel, which improves immunity and protects against many dangers of information breaches from eavesdroppers. MIMO and Massive MIMO, which use numerous antennas at the transmitter and receiver ends, are fundamental technologies for improving efficiency in 5G and future network systems. The PLS still requires a significant amount of work before it can be employed in practical systems. The interception of eavesdroppers can be made difficult by adding artificial noise. This paper focuses on the physical layer security considering maximal ratio combining, and artificial noise with beamforming techniques to further enhance the secrecy rate. The proposed work demonstrates that the use of transmitter beamforming with artificial noise can significantly improve the degree of confidentiality of information being transmitted between a transmitter and an intended receiver while making it more difficult for eavesdroppers to intercept. The simulation results in terms of bit error rate show that the proposed method has a significant impact on the error rate performance of the eavesdropper.
The applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are widespread in areas such as environmental monitoring, industrial automation, healthcare and smart infrastructures, where secure and reliable wireless communication is essential. The nature of a wireless channel, however, lends itself to the problem of eavesdropper-directed wireless sensor networking, interception and unauthorized access. This paper presents a secure physical layer communication system featuring the combination of channel estimator, physical layer key generator, artificial noise generator and adaptive power allocator to increase the confidentiality of physical layer communications and simultaneously achieve energy efficiency. A hybrid security mechanism is used, which takes advantage of the channel characteristics to create secret keys and to make the eavesdropper's signal reception worse by introducing controlled artificial noise. Key performance parameters considered for simulation-based evaluation are secrecy capacity, BER, PDR, Throughput, Energy consumption and Network lifetime. Results show that the secrecy capacity is 6.3 bps/Hz, the packet delivery ratio is 98.7%, the bit error rate is 10⁻⁶, and the network lifetime is 1675 rounds. The proposed framework is much more effective in terms of both communication security and energy efficiency than the traditional WSNs security schemes.
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.
One of the most important issues for secure communication in the physical layer is developing physical layer security techniques to provide confidentiality and data integrity in wireless communication systems. The properties of the physical channel are used in these methodologies to safeguard communication from eavesdropping and some other security threats. This article presents physical layer security methods that can be implemented in wireless communication systems. Artificial Noise (AN) is one of the most popular techniques. The original signal is combined with a generated by the transmitter in such a way that eavesdroppers cannot easily decode the data. Cooperative Anti-jamming: Yet another strategy for jammer localization is to employ cooperative jamming, where multiple friendly users can add noise signals over the signal in an effort to confuse potential eavesdroppers. In addition, additional technologies such as multi-input multi-output beamforming and transmit power control can further improve the security of wireless communication systems. In this regard, strategies based on game theory have been proposed as a viable alternative to enhancing physical layer security. Viewing the interaction between the transmitter, receiver, and eavesdropper as a game allows us to reveal their optimal strategies and security levels.