A Survey of Physical Layer Security Techniques for 5G Wireless Networks and Challenges Ahead

Physical layer security which safeguards data confidentiality based on the information-theoretic approaches has received significant research interest recently. The key idea behind physical layer security is to utilize the intrinsic randomness of the transmission channel to guarantee the security in physical layer. The evolution towards 5G wireless communications poses new challenges for physical layer security research. This paper provides a latest survey of the physical layer security research on various promising 5G technologies, including physical layer security coding, massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, full duplex technology, etc. Technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends of physical layer security in 5G and beyond are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication

Physical Layer Security in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Under A Hybrid Full-/Half-Duplex Receiver Deployment Strategy

This paper studies physical layer security in a wireless ad hoc network with numerous legitimate transmitter-receiver pairs and eavesdroppers. A hybrid full-/half-duplex receiver deployment strategy is proposed to secure legitimate transmissions, by letting a fraction of legitimate receivers work in the full-duplex (FD) mode sending jamming signals to confuse eavesdroppers upon their information receptions, and letting the other receivers work in the half-duplex mode just receiving their desired signals. The objective of this paper is to choose properly the fraction of FD receivers for achieving the optimal network security performance. Both accurate expressions and tractable approximations for the connection outage probability and the secrecy outage probability of an arbitrary legitimate link are derived, based on which the area secure link number, network-wide secrecy throughput and network-wide secrecy energy efficiency are optimized respectively. Various insights into the optimal fraction are further developed and its closed-form expressions are also derived under perfect self-interference cancellation or in a dense network. It is concluded that the fraction of FD receivers triggers a non-trivial trade-off between reliability and secrecy, and the proposed strategy can significantly enhance the network security performance.Comment: Journal paper, double-column 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted by IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 201

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

Physical-Layer Secret Key Generation via CQI-Mapped Spatial Modulation in Multi-Hop Wiretap Ad-Hoc Networks

Providing security guarantee is a critical concern in the ad-hoc networks relying on multi-hop channels, since their flexible topology is vulnerable to security attacks. To enhance the security of a spatial modulation (SM) assisted wireless network, various SM mapping patterns are activated by random channel quality indicator (CQI) patterns over the legitimate link, as a physical-layer secret key. The SM signals are encrypted by random mapping patterns to prevent eavesdroppers from correctly demapping their detections. This secret key is developed for multi-hop wiretap ad-hoc networks, where eavesdroppers might monitor all the transmitting nodes of a legitimate link. We substantially characterise the multi-hop wiretap model with receiver diversity techniques adopted by eavesdroppers. The security performance of the conceived scheme is evaluated in the scenarios where eavesdroppers attempt to detect their received signals using maximal-ratio combining or maximum-gain selection. The achievable data rates of both legitimate and wiretapper links are formulated with the objective of quantifying the secrecy rates for both Gaussian-distributed and finite-alphabet inputs. Illustrative numerical results are provided for the metrics of ergodic secrecy rate and secrecy outage probability, which substantiate the compelling benefits of the physical-layer secret key generation via CQI-mapped SM

Cooperative Jamming for Secure Communications in MIMO Relay Networks

Secure communications can be impeded by eavesdroppers in conventional relay systems. This paper proposes cooperative jamming strategies for two-hop relay networks where the eavesdropper can wiretap the relay channels in both hops. In these approaches, the normally inactive nodes in the relay network can be used as cooperative jamming sources to confuse the eavesdropper. Linear precoding schemes are investigated for two scenarios where single or multiple data streams are transmitted via a decode-and-forward (DF) relay, under the assumption that global channel state information (CSI) is available. For the case of single data stream transmission, we derive closed-form jamming beamformers and the corresponding optimal power allocation. Generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD)-based secure relaying schemes are proposed for the transmission of multiple data streams. The optimal power allocation is found for the GSVD relaying scheme via geometric programming. Based on this result, a GSVD-based cooperative jamming scheme is proposed that shows significant improvement in terms of secrecy rate compared to the approach without jamming. Furthermore, the case involving an eavesdropper with unknown CSI is also investigated in this paper. Simulation results show that the secrecy rate is dramatically increased when inactive nodes in the relay network participate in cooperative jamming.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin