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Wireless secret key generation versus capable adversaries

Masoud Ghoreishi Madiseh

Published Jan 1, 2011• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

This dissertation applies theories and concepts of wireless communications and signal processing to the security domain to assess the security of a Wireless secret Key Generation (WKG) system against capable eavesdroppers, who employ all the feasible tools to compromise the system’s security. The security of WKG is evaluated via real wireless measurements, where adversary knows and applies appropriate signal processing tools in ordere to predict the generated key with the communicating pair. It is shown that in a broadband stationary wireless communication channel, (e.g. commercial off-the-shelf 802.11 WLAN devices), a capable eavesdropper can recover a large portion of the secret key bits. However, in an Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication, at the same stationary environment, secret key rates of 128 bits per channel probe are achievable.

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Applying Beamforming to Address Temporal Correlation in Wireless Channel Characterization-Based Secret Key Generation

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Wireless secret key generation (WKG) methods based on communications channel characterizations have gained significant interest as a mechanism for providing secure point-to-point communications. Ultra-wide band (UWB) WKG solutions provide an advantage over narrow- and wide-band approaches in that they can generate secure keys even when Alice and Bob, the two communicating parties, and all objects within the environment in which they exist, are stationary (i.e., in scenarios involving zero movement). This creates a secondary problem in that the high temporal correlations of such environments can lead to successive WKG processes producing identical or nearly identical secret keys, whereas the ideal is that all generated keys from successive WKG processes should be independent. This work shows that one method available to address this problem is to move to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)-based antenna systems and the use of random beamforming. The security of the resulting approach is assessed with respect to the worst case scenario whereby the eavesdropper, Eve, is assumed to possess perfect knowledge of Alice and Bob's MIMO channel and is able to estimate, with some degree of error, the coefficients of Alice and Bob's independent random beamformers.

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Wireless secret key generation (WKG) methods based on wireless channel characterizations have gained significant interest as a mechanism for providing secure point-to-point communications. The secrecy of the generated wireless channel keys mainly depends on the spatial and temporal correlation properties of the channel which arises due to the channel's physical constraints. Ultra-wide band (UWB) WKG solutions can generate secure keys even when the two communicating parties and all objects within the environment in which they exist are stationary (i.e., in scenarios involving zero movement). But for a stationary environment successively generated secret keys are same which degrades the security of the system. Thus the proposed system to increase security is to generate secret keys using elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) and to transition the two communicating parties from using single antenna system to use multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems in combination with random beamforming as a solution to the undesirable effects of high temporal correlations in stationary environments. This allows adding directionality to the signal transmission and reception processes, which is unknown to the intruders. Security is further increased by increasing the number of antennas in the MIMO multiplexing system.

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We evaluate the effectiveness of secret key extraction, for private communication between two wireless devices, from the received signal strength (RSS) variations on the wireless channel between the two devices. We use real world measurements of RSS in a variety of environments and settings. Our experimental results show that (i) in certain environments, due to lack of variations in the wireless channel, the extracted bits have very low entropy making these bits unsuitable for a secret key, (ii) an adversary can cause predictable key generation in these static environments, and (iii) in dynamic scenarios where the two devices are mobile, and/or where there is a significant movement in the environment, high entropy bits are obtained fairly quickly. Building on the strengths of existing secret key extraction approaches, we develop an environment adaptive secret key generation scheme that uses an adaptive lossy quantizer in conjunction with Cascade-based information reconciliation [7] and privacy amplification [14]. Our measurements show that our scheme, in comparison to the existing ones that we evaluate, performs the best in terms of generating high entropy bits at a high bit rate. The secret key bit streams generated by our scheme also pass the randomness tests of the NIST test suite [21] that we conduct.

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Theoretical models of ultrawideband (UWB) radio channels indicate that pairs of UWB radio transceivers measure their common radio channel with a high degree of agreement and third parties are not be able to accurately estimate the state of the common channels. These properties allow generation of secret keys to support secure communications from UWB channels measurements. In this paper, the results of UWB propagation studies are presented that validate the required properties to support secret key generation in a typical indoor environment. Key generation algorithms are employed on the measured data and key lengths on the order of thousands of bits are obtained capable of supporting most popular cryptographic systems. The paper also reports measurements of the spatial and temporal correlation of the UWB channel from which the relative privacy of the secret keys can be determined as well as the rate new secret keys may be generated.

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Wireless physical-layer security performance of UWB systems

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Traditionally, spread-spectrum systems have been employed to provide low probability-of-intercept (LPI), low probability-of-detection (LPD) performance at the physical layer, but the messages transmitted over such a system are still encrypted with a powerful cipher to protect their secrecy. However, it has recently been suggested that the cryptographic security of the system can be enhanced by exploiting physical properties of ultra-wideband (UWB) signals. With an eavesdropper observing the communications over multipath channels between two legitimate partners sharing a secret key of a limited length, we consider both coherent and reference-based UWB schemes to enhance security. The security of the legitimate nodes is achieved by signal attributes based on the secret key, giving them an advantage over the adversary. In particular, we propose transmission schemes and investigate the physical layer security performance of UWB systems intended for coherent reception and UWB transmitted-reference (TR) systems in IEEE 802.15.4a multipath environments. Critical to the TR scheme is employing true randomness to keep a sophisticated adversary from decoding the signal coherently. Numerical results for IEEE 802.15.4a channel models reveal not only that the proposed schemes provide promising support for higher-layer cryptographic protocols, but also, perhaps surprisingly, that the baseline UWB TR system can demonstrate better security tradeoffs than the baseline UWB system intended for coherent reception under the IEEE 802.15.4a channel model.

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This dissertation applies theories and concepts of wireless communications and signal processing to the security domain to assess the security of a Wireless secret Key Generation (WKG) system against capable eavesdroppers, who employ all the feasible tools to compromise the system’s security. The security of WKG is evaluated via real wireless measurements, where adversary knows and applies appropriate signal processing tools in ordere to predict the generated key with the communicating pair. It is shown that in a broadband stationary wireless communication channel, (e.g. commercial off-the-shelf 802.11 WLAN devices), a capable eavesdropper can recover a large portion of the secret key bits. However, in an Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication, at the same stationary environment, secret key rates of 128 bits per channel probe are achievable.
Wireless secret key generation (WKG) methods based on communications channel characterizations have gained significant interest as a mechanism for providing secure point-to-point communications. Ultra-wide band (UWB) WKG solutions provide an advantage over narrow- and wide-band approaches in that they can generate secure keys even when Alice and Bob, the two communicating parties, and all objects within the environment in which they exist, are stationary (i.e., in scenarios involving zero movement). This creates a secondary problem in that the high temporal correlations of such environments can lead to successive WKG processes producing identical or nearly identical secret keys, whereas the ideal is that all generated keys from successive WKG processes should be independent. This work shows that one method available to address this problem is to move to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)-based antenna systems and the use of random beamforming. The security of the resulting approach is assessed with respect to the worst case scenario whereby the eavesdropper, Eve, is assumed to possess perfect knowledge of Alice and Bob's MIMO channel and is able to estimate, with some degree of error, the coefficients of Alice and Bob's independent random beamformers.
Wireless secret key generation (WKG) methods based on wireless channel characterizations have gained significant interest as a mechanism for providing secure point-to-point communications. The secrecy of the generated wireless channel keys mainly depends on the spatial and temporal correlation properties of the channel which arises due to the channel's physical constraints. Ultra-wide band (UWB) WKG solutions can generate secure keys even when the two communicating parties and all objects within the environment in which they exist are stationary (i.e., in scenarios involving zero movement). But for a stationary environment successively generated secret keys are same which degrades the security of the system. Thus the proposed system to increase security is to generate secret keys using elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) and to transition the two communicating parties from using single antenna system to use multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems in combination with random beamforming as a solution to the undesirable effects of high temporal correlations in stationary environments. This allows adding directionality to the signal transmission and reception processes, which is unknown to the intruders. Security is further increased by increasing the number of antennas in the MIMO multiplexing system.
We evaluate the effectiveness of secret key extraction, for private communication between two wireless devices, from the received signal strength (RSS) variations on the wireless channel between the two devices. We use real world measurements of RSS in a variety of environments and settings. Our experimental results show that (i) in certain environments, due to lack of variations in the wireless channel, the extracted bits have very low entropy making these bits unsuitable for a secret key, (ii) an adversary can cause predictable key generation in these static environments, and (iii) in dynamic scenarios where the two devices are mobile, and/or where there is a significant movement in the environment, high entropy bits are obtained fairly quickly. Building on the strengths of existing secret key extraction approaches, we develop an environment adaptive secret key generation scheme that uses an adaptive lossy quantizer in conjunction with Cascade-based information reconciliation [7] and privacy amplification [14]. Our measurements show that our scheme, in comparison to the existing ones that we evaluate, performs the best in terms of generating high entropy bits at a high bit rate. The secret key bit streams generated by our scheme also pass the randomness tests of the NIST test suite [21] that we conduct.
Secure communications in UWB based on cryptographic keys generated from channel measurements without a trusted third party have been developed. The fine time resolution of UWB allows high levels of mutual information to be obtained by a given A and B through independent characterizations of their shared communication channel. This mutual information determines the maximum secret key rate available to A and B. Since UWB channel gains change drastically with small antenna movements, it is inherently difficult for eavesdroppers to obtain channel measurements and reduce the secret key rate. In essence, UWB can provide spatial-temporal specific secret keys. Upper bounds on the secret key rate for standard UWB channels are calculated. It is demonstrated that high secure key generation rates are possible. It is shown that these key rates can be generated over a wide range of signal to noise ratios and channel synchronization errors.
Theoretical models of ultrawideband (UWB) radio channels indicate that pairs of UWB radio transceivers measure their common radio channel with a high degree of agreement and third parties are not be able to accurately estimate the state of the common channels. These properties allow generation of secret keys to support secure communications from UWB channels measurements. In this paper, the results of UWB propagation studies are presented that validate the required properties to support secret key generation in a typical indoor environment. Key generation algorithms are employed on the measured data and key lengths on the order of thousands of bits are obtained capable of supporting most popular cryptographic systems. The paper also reports measurements of the spatial and temporal correlation of the UWB channel from which the relative privacy of the secret keys can be determined as well as the rate new secret keys may be generated.
Traditionally, spread-spectrum systems have been employed to provide low probability-of-intercept (LPI), low probability-of-detection (LPD) performance at the physical layer, but the messages transmitted over such a system are still encrypted with a powerful cipher to protect their secrecy. However, it has recently been suggested that the cryptographic security of the system can be enhanced by exploiting physical properties of ultra-wideband (UWB) signals. With an eavesdropper observing the communications over multipath channels between two legitimate partners sharing a secret key of a limited length, we consider both coherent and reference-based UWB schemes to enhance security. The security of the legitimate nodes is achieved by signal attributes based on the secret key, giving them an advantage over the adversary. In particular, we propose transmission schemes and investigate the physical layer security performance of UWB systems intended for coherent reception and UWB transmitted-reference (TR) systems in IEEE 802.15.4a multipath environments. Critical to the TR scheme is employing true randomness to keep a sophisticated adversary from decoding the signal coherently. Numerical results for IEEE 802.15.4a channel models reveal not only that the proposed schemes provide promising support for higher-layer cryptographic protocols, but also, perhaps surprisingly, that the baseline UWB TR system can demonstrate better security tradeoffs than the baseline UWB system intended for coherent reception under the IEEE 802.15.4a channel model.