The Internet of Things (IoT) is a popular technology that refers to a network of internet-connected physical devices that interact to perform tasks with minimal human intervention. However, as these networks expand, ensuring their security becomes challenging due to the communication broadcasting nature and extensive data exchanges. Traditional cryptographic security methods may not be optimal due to the constrained resources of loT devices. In this study, we propose a novel secure key distribution scheme from a physical layer perspective suitable for an loT environment. The proposed scheme takes advantage of the availability of Channel State Information (CSI) at both ends of the communication to enhance security. Specifically, CSI is utilized to precode the key symbols during the key distribution process. Additionally, the scheme employs the xor operation to add an extra layer of difficulty for potential eavesdroppers that attempt to retrieve the transmitted key symbols. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated in terms of Key Error Rate (KER) at legitimate nodes and eavesdroppers by using Monte Carlo simulations.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a popular technology that refers to a network of internet-connected physical devices that interact to perform tasks with minimal human intervention. However, as these networks expand, ensuring their security becomes challenging due to the communication broadcasting nature and extensive data exchanges. Traditional cryptographic security methods may not be optimal due to the constrained resources of loT devices. In this study, we propose a novel secure key distribution scheme from a physical layer perspective suitable for an loT environment. The proposed scheme takes advantage of the availability of Channel State Information (CSI) at both ends of the communication to enhance security. Specifically, CSI is utilized to precode the key symbols during the key distribution process. Additionally, the scheme employs the xor operation to add an extra layer of difficulty for potential eavesdroppers that attempt to retrieve the transmitted key symbols. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated in terms of Key Error Rate (KER) at legitimate nodes and eavesdroppers by using Monte Carlo simulations.
Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks generally contain resource-constrained devices that require an energy-efficient key generation procedure to producing secure keys at a faster rate. The physical characteristics of the wireless channel can be exploited to secure communication within IoT networks. In particular, secret keys can be generated by leveraging on the randomness of the wireless physical channel between two communicating parties. The conventional mechanism of generating keys at the physical layer, i.e., using channel probing, quantization, information reconciliation, and privacy amplification, may not be preferable for IoT devices. In addition, in some cases IoT devices may be deployed in static environments, wherein the channel coherence time is too high to generate keys at a faster rate and with the desired randomness. This study proposes a mapping table-based key distribution scheme for IoT environments, wherein multiple characteristics of the random channel are combined to improve not only the key generation rate (KGR) but also the key agreement rate (KAR) and bit error rate (BER). In the proposed scheme, both the channel magnitude and the phase are exploited in the key generation process. The proposed scheme is immune to channel estimation errors while providing sufficient randomness in the static environment. Additionally, the scheme is thoroughly investigated for different scenarios including the case of a smarter eavesdropper, which attempts to estimate the channel between the legitimate nodes. This case verifies the robustness of the proposed scheme in different settings and attack models.
Abstract Internet of Things (IoT) technology has recently been adopted in different fields and applications. An IoT network allows for a large set of physical objects (or devices) with various technologies to work together and exchange a large amount of information. This, however, raises different security and privacy concerns, including the confidentiality of the exchanged data. Usually, data confidentiality is maintained in wireless networks utilizing data encryption using a pre‐shared secret key. Thus, protecting the key distribution process is essential to maintaining a secure network. However, due to the typically large size of IoT networks, conventional secret key distribution schemes are unsuitable and lead to resource inefficiency. Therefore, in this paper, an efficient key distribution scheme is proposed by using physical‐layer security concepts. Specifically, non‐orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is utilized to distribute the key to multiple nodes in a resource‐efficient manner. Moreover, the instantaneous channel phase is also used to attain a secure distribution in which each node can obtain its own key only. The performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed in terms of the key error rate at both a legitimate node and an eavesdropper under different channel fading models, where closed form mathematical expressions are derived and verified via simulation results.
With a massive amount of wireless sensor nodes in Internet of Things (IoT), it is difficult to establish key distribution and management mechanism for traditional encryption technology. Alternatively, the physical layer key generation technology is promising to implement in IoT, since it is based on the principle of information-theoretical security and has the advantage of low complexity. Most existing key generation schemes assume that eavesdropping channels are independent of legitimate channels, which may not be practical especially when eavesdropper nodes are near to legitimate nodes. However, this paper investigates key generation problems for a multi-relay wireless network in IoT, where the correlation between eavesdropping and legitimate channels are considered. Key generation schemes are proposed for both non-colluding and partially colluding eavesdroppers situations. The main idea is to divide the key agreement process into three phases: 1) we first generate a secret key by exploiting the difference between the random channels associated with each relay node and the eavesdropping channels; 2) another key is generated by integrating the residual common randomness associated with each relay pair; 3) the two keys generated in the first two phases are concatenated into the final key. The secrecy key performance of the proposed key generation schemes is also derived with closed-forms.
Application of Internet of Things (IoT) in health, defense, banking, and other confidential information transfer urges the need for secure IoT. As most of the IoT devices are resource-limited (antennas, bandwidth, energy), securing the information transfer has always been a challenge. Looking at a solution for enhancing the security of single antenna, single carrier, energy efficient devices, we propose a novel scheme, channel-based mapping diversity. This scheme uses the inherent randomness of the wireless channel and multiple mappings available for an M-ary phase shift keying constellation in confusing an eavesdropper. When the legitimate and the eavesdropper channels are independent of each other, it is shown that a symbol error rate (SER) of (M-1)/ M is induced at the eavesdropper. Whereas, when the channels are correlated, optimal and suboptimal strategies at source and eavesdropper are derived for their respective optimal performances. Further, a closed-form expression for a lower-bound on the SER at the eavesdropper is derived. Simulation results show that for the correlated case, as SNR at the eavesdropper increases, SER initially decreases, later saturates to a relatively high SER, hence making the job of the eavesdropper difficult in getting the legitimate data. Furthermore, the effect of the correlation is more pronounced on SER at higher levels of correlation. This indicates that for practical correlation scenarios, SER is high enough to confuse the eavesdropper.
The secure exchange of messages between different communication devices is a major issue of Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications in future smart cities. Current security mechanisms focus on multiple antennas technology, such as spatial modulation (SM), but in space shift keying (SSK), there is still a space to explore. In this article, we propose a secrecy-enhancing SSK scheme for IoT applications by applying security technologies in the physical layer wherein the number of transmit antennas is arbitrary rather than the value of power of two. In this scheme, the security performance of the communication system is improved by using two technologies, namely, artificial noise (AN) and antenna selection. We assume that the application scenario of the SSK system is under the classic eavesdropping model. First, we design ANs according to the channel state information (CSI) to interrupt the eavesdropper and benefit the legitimate receiver via the appropriate cancellation technology. Second, the antenna selection method is designed based on the signal to leakage noise ratio (SLNR) to further boost the secrecy performance by expanding the mutual information difference between the main channel and the eavesdropping channel. Results from our simulations indicate that by the use of the proposed scheme, significant secrecy enhancing can be achieved in terms of bit error ratio (BER) and secrecy rate (SR) when compared with existing schemes. This achieved secrecy enhancing can benefit the suitable IoT communication applications in the smart city environment to avoid the leakage of data transmission.
The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things devices (IoT) across healthcare, smart homes, transportation, and industrial automation has led to an unprecedented exchange of sensitive data over wireless channels, exposing these networks to cyberattacks, eavesdropping, and unauthorized access.Conventional cryptographic techniques, which rely on computational hardness assumptions, are increasingly vulnerable to the emerging capabilities of quantum computing.This paper explores the application of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) as a means of enabling secure and dependable data communication for IoT devices.By exploiting the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, QKD allows two communicating parties to generate a shared secret key while inherently detecting any attempt at interception.The proposed approach aims to enhance data privacy, ensure secure authentication, preserve confidentiality, and safeguard IoT systems against present and future quantum enabled threats.The integration of quantum based security techniques into existing IoT infrastructure is examined, along with its implications for improving the reliability and trustworthiness of wireless IoT communication systems.This work positions Quantum Enhanced Secure Data Communication as a forward looking security solution for next generation IoT networks.