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Globecom

Pilot Randomization-based Secret Key Generation for Static Scenarios

Thuy M. Pham, Rafael F. Schaefer, Gerhard Paul Fettweis, Arsenia Chorti

Published Dec 8, 2024• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the secret key generation (SKG) for static scenarios utilizing the pilot randomization method. In fact, the majority have studied SKG under dynamic scenarios in which a high secret key rate is achievable due to sufficiently high randomness. In this study, we instead consider the static scenario which, though important, is not well-studied. More specifically, we utilize the pilot randomization method, which is known to prevent injection attacks effectively, to randomize the associated channels. More importantly, we derive the secret key rate of the system and demonstrate that the secret key rate of a static system can increase significantly due to the added randomness. The proposed approach is demonstrated against known methods to show its effectiveness in increasing the secret key rate in static environments.

DOI
10.1109/globecom52923.2024.10901381

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In this paper, we investigate the secret key generation (SKG) for static scenarios utilizing the pilot randomization method. In fact, the majority have studied SKG under dynamic scenarios in which a high secret key rate is achievable due to sufficiently high randomness. In this study, we instead consider the static scenario which, though important, is not well-studied. More specifically, we utilize the pilot randomization method, which is known to prevent injection attacks effectively, to randomize the associated channels. More importantly, we derive the secret key rate of the system and demonstrate that the secret key rate of a static system can increase significantly due to the added randomness. The proposed approach is demonstrated against known methods to show its effectiveness in increasing the secret key rate in static environments.
In static or quasi-static wireless channel environments, secret key generation (SKG) based on wireless channels is vulnerable to active attacks due to the openness and invariance of public pilot, especially man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, where attacker acts as a transparent relay to manipulate channel measurements and derive the generated keys. In order to fight against this attack, a dynamic private pilot is designed, where both private pilot and secret key are derived from the characteristics of wireless channels and private to third party. In static or quasi-static environments, we use singular value decomposition techniques to reconstitute the wireless channels to improve the randomness of the wireless channels. Private pilot can encrypt and authenticate the wireless channels, which can make channel state information intercepted by MITM attacker reduced to zero and the SKG rate close to that without attacks. Results of analysis and simulation show the proposed SKG scheme can withdraw the MITM attacks.
This paper presents a random pilot full-duplex (FD) secret key generation scheme designed to enhance security in static wireless environments. In these environments, where inherent channel randomness is limited, efficiently extracting secret keys poses a significant challenge. The proposed scheme leverages the benefits of both FD operation and random pilot transmission to overcome this limitation and enhance the physical layer security. In this scheme, one of the FD nodes transmits random pilot signals, unknown to the eavesdropper, during the channel probing phase to artificially increase the shared randomness between the legitimate communicating nodes. By considering correlated eavesdropping, we derive the lower and upper bounds for the achievable secret key rate (SKR). The results reveal that the proposed FD scheme outperforms the HD scheme even in the presence of residual SI. Furthermore, the secret key rate can be improved by better SIC channel estimation and lower eavesdropper channel correlation.
Most secret key generation (SKG) methods need channel estimation and provide insufficient performance especially in time division duplex single input single output (TDD-SISO) system and quasi-static channel scenario. This paper proposed a two-way SKG method which can completely avoid channel estimation and achieve higher SKG rate (SKGR). Firstly, the legitimate users mutually send their own random signal via the reciprocal channel. Then, the multiplication of local random signal and the received signal can be used as common randomness to generate keys. The theoretical and practical SKGRs of the three methods, namely wireless channel based, one-way randomness and two-way randomness, are derived and compared. Simulation and estimation results show that the proposed TW method acquires a better performance not only in theory but also in practice, and the practical SKGR of TW method is time-linear which provides a feasible scheme to significantly improve the SKGR for quasi-static channel scenario.
In this paper, we study the performance of a practical secret key generation method under low-mobility scenarios. Instead of relying on traditional cryptographic methods or leveraging spatial diversity and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to increase channel variations, we utilize locally generated pilots to add randomness to the system, thus in turn helping to increase the secret key rate. The results demonstrate significant improvements over the original channels, whose entropy source mainly relies on mobility and channel variations. More importantly, this scheme works well without extra helpers or multiple antennas, thus providing a potential for developing reliable, lightweight security solutions for resource-constrained devices in practice.
Physical layer secret key generation exploits the reciprocal channel randomness for key generation and has proven to be an effective addition security layer in wireless communications. However, static or scarcely random channels require artificially induced dynamics to improve the secrecy performance, e.g., using intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). One key challenge is that the induced random phase from IRS is also reflected in the direction to eavesdroppers (Eve). This leakage enables Eve nodes to estimate the legitimate channels and secret key via a globally known pilot sequence. To mitigate the secret key leakage issue, we propose to exploit random matrix theory to inform the design of a new physical layer secret key generation (PL-SKG) algorithm. We prove that, when sending appropriate random Gaussian matrices, the singular values of Alice's and Bob's received signals follow a similar probability distribution. Leveraging these common singular values, we propose a random Gaussian matrix based PL-SKG (RGM PL-SKG), which avoids the usages of the globally known pilot and thereby prevents the aforementioned leakage issue. Our results show the following: (i) high noise resistance which leads to superior secret key rate (SKR) improvement (up to 300%) in low SNR regime, and (ii) general improved SKR performance against multiple colluded Eves. We believe our combination of random matrix theory and PL-SKG shows a new paradigm to secure the wireless communication channels.
A novel secret key generation (SKG) method based on two-way randomness is proposed for TDD-SISO system. The legitimate transceivers mutually transmit their own random signal via reciprocal wireless channel, then the multiplication of transmitted and received signal is used as common randomness to generate secret keys. In quasi-static channel, the theoretical SKG rates (SKGRs) of the three SKG methods, namely wireless channel based, one-way randomness and two-way randomness, are derived and compared. Further, two practical SKG schemes based on two-way randomness, Scheme-1bit and Scheme-3bit, are completely designed and simulated. Generally, Scheme-1bit applies to low signal to noise ratio (SNR) scenarios and achieves 0.13~0.86bit/TsSKGR and 10-2~10-5level secret key outage probability (SKOP), while Scheme-3bit fits high SNR situation and obtains 0.93~1.35bit/TsSKGR and 10-3~10-4level SKOP. At last, the national institute of standards and technology (NIST) test is conducted to evaluate the secret key randomness (SKRD) and the test results show that both of the proposed schemes have passed the test.