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IEEE Communications Letters

New Physical Layer Key Generation Dimensions: Subcarrier Indices/Positions-Based Key Generation

Haji Muhammad Furqan, Jehad M. Hamamreh, Hüseyin Arslan

Published Sep 21, 2020• 41 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this letter, novel algorithms for secret key generation from the wireless channel in multi-carrier systems are proposed for ensuring the confidentiality and authentication in wireless communication systems. The novelty of the proposed algorithms lies in the generation of random secret bits not just from the magnitudes of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subchannels as it has conventionally been done in the literature, but also from the indices/positions of the subchannels corresponding to highest gains. Thus, the proposed algorithms provide additional dimensions for enhancing overall key rates. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key mismatch rate (KMR) and key generation rate (KGR). Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithms can enhance the overall performance of physical layer key-based algorithms by providing extra dimensions for secret key generation.

DOI
10.1109/lcomm.2020.3025262

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In this letter, novel algorithms for secret key generation from the wireless channel in multi-carrier systems are proposed for ensuring the confidentiality and authentication in wireless communication systems. The novelty of the proposed algorithms lies in the generation of random secret bits not just from the magnitudes of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subchannels as it has conventionally been done in the literature, but also from the indices/positions of the subchannels corresponding to highest gains. Thus, the proposed algorithms provide additional dimensions for enhancing overall key rates. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key mismatch rate (KMR) and key generation rate (KGR). Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithms can enhance the overall performance of physical layer key-based algorithms by providing extra dimensions for secret key generation.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the generated secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this letter, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions/indices of those subchannels, whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this work, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed work lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions of those subchannels whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. Additionally, a statistical test suite offered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology is used to evaluate the randomness of the generated key bits. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
Physical layer key generation from the wireless channel is an emerging area of interest to provide confidentiality and authentication. One of the main challenges in this domain is to increase the length of the secret key while maintaining its randomness and uniformity. In this work, new dimensions for wireless channel-based key generation are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The novel perspective of the proposed scheme called NIAKG lies in the generation of key bits not only from the magnitudes of OFDM subchannels as it has conventionally been done but also from the number and positions/indices of those subchannels, whose channel gains are above the mean of the respective subblock. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated in terms of key generation rate and key mismatch rate. It is shown in the simulation results that the involvement of the proposed dimensions can double the key generation rate compared to conventional algorithms.
As a new way to enhance wireless communication security, secret key generation based on physical layer channel characteristics has emerged. In this paper, we propose a novel secret key generation algorithm based on wireless channel characteristics for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems. The mean quantization algorithm is applied to quantize the real part and imaginary part of OFDM subcarriers, respectively, which can significantly increase the length of the generated secret key in the OFDM system. To reduce the consistency between the secret keys generated by the eavesdropper and the legitimate communication nodes, a processing method by taking the subcarrier phase as initialization of a scrambling code and scrambling the quantized result is proposed. The simulation and test results show that compared with the existing research, the proposed algorithm can improve the key generation rate (KGR), reduce the key mismatch rate (KMR) and complexity, maintain high randomness, and disturb the eavesdroppers.
Information is regarded as a resource with highest organizational value. Its confidentiality, integrity and authenticity are important for any organization. The broadcast nature of wireless medium makes communication vulnerable to security attacks such as eavesdropping, non-repudiation, denial of service and more. Hence, prior to transmission of information, a secret key is securely exchanged between sender and receiver. Conventional key generation algorithms work at the application layer. However, they suffer from computational overheads and require a reliable third party. Moreover, when system grows complex, these methods start failing considerably. To encounter these issues, a novel key exchange mechanism is proposed which works at the physical layer. The proposed method is based on the concept of self-jamming and exploits the properties of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a low Bit Error Rate (BER) for the receiver and high BER for the eavesdropper. It has also been shown that the number of attempts that eavesdropper has to make to guess the correct key are large, thereby decreasing its probability to decode the correct key.
Key generation from the randomness of wireless channels is a promising technique to establish a secret cryptographic key securely between legitimate users. This paper proposes a new approach to extract keys efficiently from the channel responses of individual orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. The efficiency is achieved by: 1) fully exploiting randomness from time and frequency domains and 2) improving the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. Through the theoretical modeling of the time and frequency autocorrelation relationship of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses, we can obtain the optimal probing rate and use multiple uncorrelated subcarriers as random sources. We also study the effects of non-simultaneous measurements and noise on the cross-correlation of the channel measurements. We find that the cross-correlation is mainly impacted by noise effects in a slow fading channel and use a low-pass filter to reduce the key disagreement rate and extend the system's working signal-to-noise ratio range. The system is evaluated in terms of randomness, key generation rate, and key disagreement rate, verifying that it is feasible to extract randomness from both time and frequency domains of the OFDM subcarrier's channel responses.