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Journal of Physics Conference Series

A novel scatterer model for the security of key generation based on DISC model

Yuanhang Yang, Xin Zeng, Xiaoping Xue

Published Apr 1, 2021• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Physical layer security is a method of extracting encryption keys according to the randomness of reciprocal propagation channels between legitimate users, and the security under normal circumstances is ensured according to the decorrelation between these channels and those tapped by eavesdropper. However, evidences show that in some scenarios, such as the environment of quasi-static or insufficient scattering, the tapped channel still has a strong correlation with the legitimate channel, leading to bits leakage and security imperilment of key generation. The effect of introducing scatterers has been experimentally proved, however, these studies are based on fixed positions or special models and there is yet a lack of research on the influences brought by various scatterer distributions. In this paper, we introduce scatterers into single-bounced DISC model and control their distributions through a probability density function with two degrees of freedom, aiming to deeply investigate the impacts of scatterer distribution on channel decorrelation as well as key security. Simulation results prove that spiral correlation between tapped channel and legitimate channel can be effectively reduced by increasing scatterers and arranging them around the legitimate receiver, which make contributions to reduce key leakage and improve security.

DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/1873/1/012075

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Abstract Physical layer security is a method of extracting encryption keys according to the randomness of reciprocal propagation channels between legitimate users, and the security under normal circumstances is ensured according to the decorrelation between these channels and those tapped by eavesdropper. However, evidences show that in some scenarios, such as the environment of quasi-static or insufficient scattering, the tapped channel still has a strong correlation with the legitimate channel, leading to bits leakage and security imperilment of key generation. The effect of introducing scatterers has been experimentally proved, however, these studies are based on fixed positions or special models and there is yet a lack of research on the influences brought by various scatterer distributions. In this paper, we introduce scatterers into single-bounced DISC model and control their distributions through a probability density function with two degrees of freedom, aiming to deeply investigate the impacts of scatterer distribution on channel decorrelation as well as key security. Simulation results prove that spiral correlation between tapped channel and legitimate channel can be effectively reduced by increasing scatterers and arranging them around the legitimate receiver, which make contributions to reduce key leakage and improve security.
Physical layer security is a method to ensure the confidentiality of a wireless communication from encryption keys exploiting the randomness of the reciprocal propagation channel between a pair of legitimate users, Alice and Bob. This confidentiality is achieved owing to the decorrelation between these channels and that experienced by a third terminal (Eve), acting as an eavesdropper. In this work, we evaluate the secret key capacity of a simple channel model, based on a disc of scatterers. The model allows to consider any distance between Bob and Eve within the disc, thus is not limited to a spatial stationarity, and is suitable to investigate the impact on the security of multiple antennas.
Physics layer key, as an emerging method to enhance information security, is generated based on the reciprocity and spatial decorrelation of wireless channels. However, due to the half-duplex mode of the communication systems, the channels detected by the legitimate sides are not completely reciprocal. Meanwhile, when the eavesdropper is extremely close to the legitimate side, the spatial correlation could be very strong and threaten the information security. This paper combines the autoencoder and the multi-task learning into a novel physical layer key generation scheme, i.e., Multi-Task Autoencoder (MTAE). MTAE extracts the reciprocal features from the weakly correlated channel estimates of the legitimate sides while reducing its correlation with eavesdropper. Simulation results show good randomness and consistency with the primary keys generated based on MTAE for the legitimate sides, while increasing the difference in the extracted features between eavesdropper and its adjacent node. The proposed method has great potential in scenarios requiring high security.
Recent accomplishments in physical-layer security research have shown that channel coding for secrecy can be effectively combined with security at other layers, such as cryptography at the application layer, in order to provide a significant security enhancement to communication systems. The goal of this previous work was to inhibit the passive eavesdropper in the wiretap channel model by encoding the ciphertext using nonsystematic low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes prior to transmission and by exploiting the advantage of feedback for legitimate parties. The net result was propagation of a single packet erasure to the detriment of the entire message. The security enhancement was characterized assuming statistically independent packet erasure channels (PECs) for the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. In this paper, we go beyond these results by addressing correlated erasure events across the two channels in a wiretap feedback framework. The intuitive notion that high correlation across channels reduces secrecy is shown through the complete characterization of the correlated channel scenario. Furthermore, it is shown that security improvements are still achievable in the face of positive correlation by means of judicious physical-layer design, even when the eavesdropper has a better channel than the legitimate receiver.
The diverse application scenarios envisioned for sixth generation (6G) are characterized by the deep integration of sensing and ubiquitous connectivity, which imposes unprecedentedly stringent security requirements. However, due to the open nature of wireless channels, mobile communications systems always face severe information security threats such as falsification, spoofing, interception, and repudiation. Cryptography-based symmetric and asymmetric encryption techniques remain mainstream solutions for information protection. Symmetric encryption is efficient and secure for legitimate users but suffers from key-distribution difficulties over open wireless channels, whereas asymmetric encryption resolves this problem but faces increasing risks from quantum computing due to its reliance on structured mathematical hardness assumptions. In response to these limitations, physical layer security (PLS) has gained a great deal of research attention as a powerful security component that leverages the features of varying wireless channels. Existing PLS schemes can be broadly classified into two categories. The first one takes advantage of the legitimate link’s opportunistic channel-quality superiority over or different spatial-domain directions from the attacking link, which still faces many practical implementation difficulties. The second category is termed physical-layer key generation (PLKG). It extracts the unique features of the legitimate link’s channel variation, which is often reciprocal, as the source of secret key generation and therefore can naturally implement secure key distribution tasks. This advantage no doubt injects new vigor to symmetric encryption as a stronger protection approach. Following this trend, we in this paper concentrate on the PLKG techniques. Specifically, we present a comprehensive overview on existing PLKG schemes, discussing diverse secret key generation and reconciliation methods. We further investigate the model-driven and deep-learning-based approaches tailored for the scenario with imperfect channel reciprocity between the sender and receiver. After comprehensively reviewing major existing schemes, we further discuss a recently proposed PLKG design based on codeword reconstruction, which makes use of the strong error-correcting capability of the forward-error-correction (FEC) codes to effectively implement secure and consistent secret key generation between the legitimate sender and receiver. Finally, we share our opinions on the unsolved challenges and potential research directions dedicated to PLKG toward meeting the security requirements of 6G.
The location-specific channel state information can be exploited to generate secret keys for wireless system services, In the multipath wireless environment. Its secrecy capacity was usually studied with the wiretap channel model. This paper proposes a side channel model which is even more threatening to the security of the physical layer randomness based secret keys. We present the information-theoretic analysis of the side channel model, and compare it with the wire-tap model. The analysis indicates that the secret key capacity of the side-channel will be lower than that of the wire-tap channel, especially with a fading scenario. We conduct MATLAB simulation of physical layer randomness based key generation and SPICE simulation of key extraction to observe the side channel leakage of the circuit. The simulation results confirm the consistency of the key bits, thus verifying the feasibility of our proposed side-channel attack scheme against the physical layer security.