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IEEE Wireless Communications Letters

PHY-PSIONICS: Physical-Layer Phase Secret Key Encapsulation in Correlated Subchannels

Seungnam Han, Jinho Choi, Euiseok Hwang

Published May 15, 2023• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this letter, we propose a physical-layer (PHY) phase secret key encapsulation in correlated subchannels, PHY-PSIONICS. Based on the PHY phase challenge-response authentication scheme (PHY-PCRAS), conventional PHY authentication approaches generally exploit the channel phase’s reciprocity to encapsulate the secret key. However, for typical multi-carrier systems, correlations between neighboring subcarriers could cause these schemes to lose credibility. Therefore, we propose a novel key encapsulation scheme to allow PHY phase-based authentication in practical multi-carrier systems. The shared secret key is efficiently encapsulated by the binning-based multi-bit alphabet phase fingerprinting. We constructed a testbed with several universal software radio peripherals for verification to evaluate the authentication performance experimentally in an indoor environment containing correlated subchannels. The numerical findings demonstrate that the proposed scheme is strong against eavesdropping and replay attacks, even under subchannel correlations.

DOI
10.1109/lwc.2023.3276020

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In this letter, we propose a physical-layer (PHY) phase secret key encapsulation in correlated subchannels, PHY-PSIONICS. Based on the PHY phase challenge-response authentication scheme (PHY-PCRAS), conventional PHY authentication approaches generally exploit the channel phase’s reciprocity to encapsulate the secret key. However, for typical multi-carrier systems, correlations between neighboring subcarriers could cause these schemes to lose credibility. Therefore, we propose a novel key encapsulation scheme to allow PHY phase-based authentication in practical multi-carrier systems. The shared secret key is efficiently encapsulated by the binning-based multi-bit alphabet phase fingerprinting. We constructed a testbed with several universal software radio peripherals for verification to evaluate the authentication performance experimentally in an indoor environment containing correlated subchannels. The numerical findings demonstrate that the proposed scheme is strong against eavesdropping and replay attacks, even under subchannel correlations.
The broadcast nature of radio propagation makes wireless networks vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks. To enhance authentication strength in wireless networks, various physical layer authentication schemes were proposed by exploiting physical layer characteristics. Recently, we proposed a novel PHYsical layer Phase Challenge-Response Authentication Scheme (PHY PCRAS), which exploits both the reciprocity and randomness of the phase responses over independent parallel multicarrier channels. In this paper, we first extend it to more practical Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) transmission. Then, security analysis is provided, and information-theoretic security is formulated for PHY-PCRAS over both independent and correlated subchannels. Finally, we propose a practical framework for incorporating the mechanism of physical layer authentication into the current Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA) protocol. Compared to the conventional 3GPP AKA protocol, the PHY-PCRAS assisted authentication process can ensure some degree of information-theoretic security. It is also possible to further protect the subsequent classic AKA process on the air through the physical layer secure information transmission technique.
Exploiting the inherent physical properties of wireless channels to complement or enhance the traditional security mechanisms has attracted prominent attention recently. However, the existing secret key generation schemes suffer from miscellaneous extracting procedure. Many PHY-layer authentication schemes assume that the knowledge of the shared key is preknown. In this paper, we propose PHY-layer secret key generation and authentication schemes for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In the secret key generation scheme, to simplify the extracting procedure, only one legitimate party is chosen to probe the channel and quantize the measurements to obtain the preliminary key. The preliminary key is masked by the channel-phase after the mapping and before equalization and distributed to the other party. The final shared key is used for the PHY-layer authentication scheme in which random signals and the shared key masked by the channel-phase are exchanged at the PHY-layer. Then, a binary hypothesis test is formulated for authentication. Simulation results show that the proposed secret key generation scheme outperforms the existing schemes. For the PHY-layer authentication scheme, it is immune to various passive and active attacks and a high successful authentication rate is acquired even at low signal-to-noise ratio region.
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.
Due to the broadcast nature of wireless channels, wireless communication is vulnerable to eavesdropping, message modification, and node impersonation. Securing the wireless communication requires the shared secret keys between the communicating entities. Traditional security schemes rely on public key infrastructures and cryptographic algorithms to manage secret keys. Recently, many physical-layer-based methods have been proposed as alternative solutions for key generation in wireless networks. These methods exploit the inherent randomness of the wireless fading channel to generate secret keys while providing information-theoretical security without intensive cryptographic computations. This article provides an overview of the existing PHY-based key generation schemes exploiting the randomness of the wireless channels. Specifically, we first introduce the fundamental and general framework of the PHY-based key generation schemes and then categorize them into two classes: received-signal-strength-based and channel- phase-based protocols. Finally, we present a performance comparison of them in terms of key disagreement probability, key generation rate, key bit randomness, scalability, and implementation issues.
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.
This manuscript aims to generate a secret key for a PHY layer to evaluate the channel characteristics in wireless communications. An algorithmic approach is adopted for multimedia encryption to generate a secret key between two entities communicating with each other in a real time simulation environment such as MATLAB. Two classes of PHY key generation schemes are analyzed for designing the algorithm such as received-signal-strength-based and channel- phase-based protocols. We present a performance comparison of them in terms of key disagreement probability, key generation rate, key bit randomness, scalability, and implementation issues.