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Proceedings of the IEEE

Physical Layer Covert Communication in B5G Wireless Networks—its Research, Applications, and Challenges

Yu'e Jiang, Liangmin Wang, Hsiao‐Hwa Chen, Xuemin Shen

Published Jan 1, 2024• 58 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Physical layer covert communication is a crucial secure communication technology that enables a transmitter to convey information covertly to a recipient without being detected by adversaries. Unlike typical cryptography and physical layer security systems that concentrate on protecting the sent signal content, covert communications seek to conceal the existence of legitimate transmission. Thus, with beyond fifth-generation (B5G) wireless communications, covert communications can operate in tandem or as a supplement to conventional security techniques. We provide an extensive overview of the basic theories and several strategies in physical layer covert communications in this article. In particular, we go into great detail about the basic theories of physical layer covert communications, such as channel models, codes, secret keys, and covertness metrics, as well as various covert schemes in progressively more complicated scenarios, such as covert communications in single-antenna and multiantenna three-node systems and covert communications in jammer-and relay-aided systems. In addition, we identify the challenges and future directions for research on covert communications in B5G wireless networks.

DOI
10.1109/jproc.2024.3364256

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Physical layer covert communication is a crucial secure communication technology that enables a transmitter to convey information covertly to a recipient without being detected by adversaries. Unlike typical cryptography and physical layer security systems that concentrate on protecting the sent signal content, covert communications seek to conceal the existence of legitimate transmission. Thus, with beyond fifth-generation (B5G) wireless communications, covert communications can operate in tandem or as a supplement to conventional security techniques. We provide an extensive overview of the basic theories and several strategies in physical layer covert communications in this article. In particular, we go into great detail about the basic theories of physical layer covert communications, such as channel models, codes, secret keys, and covertness metrics, as well as various covert schemes in progressively more complicated scenarios, such as covert communications in single-antenna and multiantenna three-node systems and covert communications in jammer-and relay-aided systems. In addition, we identify the challenges and future directions for research on covert communications in B5G wireless networks.
Information security has always been a critical issue in wireless networks. Apart from other secure techniques, covert communication emerges as a potential solution to security for wireless networks owing to its high-security level. In covert communication networks, the transmitter hides the transmitted signals into environmental or artificial noise by introducing randomness to avoid detection at the warden. By eliminating the existence of transmitted signals at the warden, information security can be preserved more solidly than other secure transmission techniques, i.e., without noticing the existence. Due to the promising security protection, covert communication has been successfully utilized in tremendous wireless communication scenarios. However, fundamental challenges in its practical implementation still exist, e.g., the effectiveness of randomness utilization, the low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio at legitimate users, etc. In this survey, we demonstrate a comprehensive review concentrating on the applications, solutions, and future challenges of covert communications. Specifically, the covert principle and research categories are first introduced. Then, the applications in the networks with different topologies and the effective covert techniques in the existing literature are reviewed. We also discuss the potential implementation of covert communications in future networks and the open challenges.
The broadcast nature of wireless communication systems makes wireless transmission extremely susceptible to eavesdropping and even malicious interference. Physical layer security technology can effectively protect the private information sent by the transmitter from being listened to by illegal eavesdroppers, thus ensuring the privacy and security of communication between the transmitter and legitimate users. Thus, the main design goal of physical layer security is to increase the performance difference between the link of the legitimate receiver and that of the eavesdropper using well-designed transmission schemes. The development of mobile communication presents new challenges to physical layer security research. This paper provides a survey of the physical layer security research on various promising mobile technologies from secure key generation and keyless techniques, including secure key generation, directional modulation (DM), spatial modulation (SM), covert communication, and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided communication. Finally, the future topics and the unresolved technical challenges are presented in physical layer security for mobile communications.
Due to the broadcast nature of wireless radio propagation channels, 5G wireless networks face serious security threats. Security mechanisms that leverage physical layer characteristics have been considered as potential complements to enhance 5G wireless network security. This article proposes physical layer security enhancements to defend against security attacks from the three most significant aspects: wireless secure communication, physical layer assisted authentication and secret key distribution. By integrating physical layer security with novel techniques and application scenarios in 5G communication, we elaborate several promising strategies, including massive MIMO beamforming with security code communication, self-adaptive mobile and cooperative secure communication with dynamic channel prediction, physical layer assisted authentication, malicious node detection and key generation of massive MIMO millimeter wave system. Research opportunities and future challenges are further discussed.
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 (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.