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Physical layer security solutions and technologies

Gustavo Anjos, Daniel Castanheira, Adão Silva, Suneel Yadav, Atílio Gameiro

Published Jul 20, 2023• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

To ensure confidentiality, today's communications are encrypted under the notion of computational security, using hard mathematical problems to build ciphers that apparently cannot be cracked in a useful time. However, as these constructions are not agnostic to technological advances, some of these problems may be solved efficiently with future technologies, e.g. quantum computing. In wireless networks, physical layer security emerges as a post-quantum security solution that promises to mitigate these threats. This concept of secrecy exploits the physical properties of the wireless channel to encode information so that a certain degree of statistical independence between the message and the cyphertext is observed by the eavesdropper. This notion of secrecy allows building cryptosystems that are agnostic to the computing capabilities of the attacker, being widely accepted as one of the strongest notions of secrecy created so far. The objective of this chapter is to overview the concept of physical layer security and understand how its integration could be done in future wireless networks. For that purpose, the information-theoretical framework grounding the concept is introduced, and some basic design approaches are presented. These include PHY key generation methods, secure beamforming techniques, and cooperative jamming constructions. The mechanisms to enable the integration of these technologies in future 5G and beyond networks are discussed last.

DOI
10.1049/pbse021e_ch9

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To ensure confidentiality, today's communications are encrypted under the notion of computational security, using hard mathematical problems to build ciphers that apparently cannot be cracked in a useful time. However, as these constructions are not agnostic to technological advances, some of these problems may be solved efficiently with future technologies, e.g. quantum computing. In wireless networks, physical layer security emerges as a post-quantum security solution that promises to mitigate these threats. This concept of secrecy exploits the physical properties of the wireless channel to encode information so that a certain degree of statistical independence between the message and the cyphertext is observed by the eavesdropper. This notion of secrecy allows building cryptosystems that are agnostic to the computing capabilities of the attacker, being widely accepted as one of the strongest notions of secrecy created so far. The objective of this chapter is to overview the concept of physical layer security and understand how its integration could be done in future wireless networks. For that purpose, the information-theoretical framework grounding the concept is introduced, and some basic design approaches are presented. These include PHY key generation methods, secure beamforming techniques, and cooperative jamming constructions. The mechanisms to enable the integration of these technologies in future 5G and beyond networks are discussed last.
Physical layer security is emerging as a promising means of ensuring secrecy in wireless communications. The key idea is to exploit the characteristics of wireless channels such as fading or noise to transmit a message from the source to the intended receiver while keeping this message confidential from eavesdroppers. Topics covered in Trusted Communications with Physical Layer Security for 5G and Beyond include secrecy metrics for physical layer security over fading channels; trusted wireless communications with spatial multiplexing; directional modulation enabled physical layer wireless security; secure waveform for 5G systems; confidential and energy efficient communications using physical layer security; secure data networks with channel uncertainty; antenna selection strategies for wiretap channels; physical layer security for massive MIMO systems, millimeter wave cellular networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, multiuser relay networks, cognitive radio networks, MIMOME-OFDM systems; wirelessly powered communication systems and D2D-enabled cellular networks; and security solutions and applications at the physical layer, including case studies of secret key generation and secrecy coding in communication nodes and terminals.
The open nature of radio propagation enables ubiquitous wireless communication. This allows for seamless data transmission. However, unauthorized users may pose a threat to the security of the data being transmitted to authorized users. This gives rise to network vulnerabilities such as hacking, eavesdropping, and jamming of the transmitted information. Physical layer security (PLS) has been identified as one of the promising security approaches to safeguard the transmission from eavesdroppers in a wireless network. It is an alternative to the computationally demanding and complex cryptographic algorithms and techniques. PLS has continually received exponential research interest owing to the possibility of exploiting the characteristics of the wireless channel. One of the main characteristics includes the random nature of the transmission channel. The aforesaid nature makes it possible for confidential and authentic signal transmission between the sender and the receiver in the physical layer. We start by introducing the basic theories of PLS, including the wiretap channel, information-theoretic security, and a brief discussion of the cryptography security technique. Furthermore, an overview of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication is provided. The main focus of our review is based on the existing key-less PLS optimization techniques, their limitations, and challenges. The paper also looks into the promising key research areas in addressing these shortfalls. Lastly, a comprehensive overview of some of the recent PLS research in 5G and 6G technologies of wireless communication networks is provided.
Physical-layer security is emerging approach that can benefit conventional encryption methods. The main idea of physical layer security is to take advantage of the features of the wireless channel and its impairments in order to ensure secure communication in the physical layer. This paper provides a comprehensive review of information-theoretic measures of the secrecy performance in physical layer security. In addition, our work survey research about physical layer security over several enabling 5G technologies, such as massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, and full-duplex, including the key concepts of each of the aforementioned technologies. Finally, future research directions and technical challenges of physical layer security are identified.
Physical-layer security is emerging approach that can benefit conventional encryption methods. The main idea of physical layer security is to take advantage of the features of the wireless channel and its impairments in order to ensure secure communication in the physical layer. This paper provides a comprehensive review of information-theoretic measures of the secrecy performance in physical layer security. In addition, our work survey research about physical layer security over several enabling 5G technologies, such as massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, and full-duplex, including the key concepts of each of the aforementioned technologies. Finally, future research directions and technical challenges of physical layer security are identified.
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.
Physical layer security (PHY-security) takes the advantages of channel randomness nature of transmission media to achieve communication confidentiality and authentication. Wiretap coding and signal processing technologies are expected to play vital roles in this new security mechanism. PHY-security has attracted a lot of attention due to its unique features and the fact that our daily life relies heavily on wireless communications for sensitive and private information transmissions. Compared to conventional cryptography that works to ensure all involved entities to load proper and authenticated cryptographic information, PHY-security technologies perform security functions without considering about how those security protocols are executed. In other words, it does not require to implement any extra security schemes or algorithms on other layers above the physical layer. This survey introduces the fundamental theories of PHY-security, covering confidentiality and authentication, and provides an overview on the state-of-the-art works on PHY-security technologies that can provide secure communications in wireless systems, along with the discussions on challenges and their proposed solutions. Furthermore, at the end of this paper, the open issues are identified as our future research directions.