A Secure Communication Game with a Relay Helping the Eavesdropper

In this work a four terminal complex Gaussian network composed of a source, a destination, an eavesdropper and a jammer relay is studied under two different set of assumptions: (i) The jammer relay does not hear the source transmission, and (ii) The jammer relay is causally given the source message. In both cases the jammer relay assists the eavesdropper and aims to decrease the achievable secrecy rates. The source, on the other hand, aims to increase it. To help the eavesdropper, the jammer relay can use pure relaying and/or send interference. Each of the problems is formulated as a two-player, non-cooperative, zero-sum continuous game. Assuming Gaussian strategies at the source and the jammer relay in the first problem, the Nash equilibrium is found and shown to be achieved with mixed strategies in general. The optimal cumulative distribution functions (cdf) for the source and the jammer relay that achieve the value of the game, which is the Nash equilibrium secrecy rate, are found. For the second problem, the Nash equilibrium solution is found and the results are compared to the case when the jammer relay is not informed about the source message.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, Special Issue on Using the Physical Layer for Securing the Next Generation of Communication Systems. This is the journal version of cs.IT:0911.008

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

Jamming Games in the MIMO Wiretap Channel With an Active Eavesdropper

This paper investigates reliable and covert transmission strategies in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channel with a transmitter, receiver and an adversarial wiretapper, each equipped with multiple antennas. In a departure from existing work, the wiretapper possesses a novel capability to act either as a passive eavesdropper or as an active jammer, under a half-duplex constraint. The transmitter therefore faces a choice between allocating all of its power for data, or broadcasting artificial interference along with the information signal in an attempt to jam the eavesdropper (assuming its instantaneous channel state is unknown). To examine the resulting trade-offs for the legitimate transmitter and the adversary, we model their interactions as a two-person zero-sum game with the ergodic MIMO secrecy rate as the payoff function. We first examine conditions for the existence of pure-strategy Nash equilibria (NE) and the structure of mixed-strategy NE for the strategic form of the game.We then derive equilibrium strategies for the extensive form of the game where players move sequentially under scenarios of perfect and imperfect information. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to examine the equilibrium outcomes of the various scenarios considered.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures. To appear, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends

This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer. We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201

Physical Layer Security Game: How to Date a Girl with Her Boyfriend on the Same Table

International audiencePhysical layer security is an emerging security technology that achieves perfect secrecy data transmission between the intended network nodes, while the eavesdrop- ping malicious nodes obtain zero information. The so-called secrecy capacity can be improved using friendly jammers that introduce extra interference to the eavesdropping ma- licious nodes while the interference to the intended desti- nation is limited. In this paper, we investigate the interac- tion between the source that transmits the desired data and friendly jammers who assist the source by \disguising" the eavesdropper. In order to obtain a distributed solution, we introduce a game theoretic approach. The game is de¯ned in such a way that the source pays the friendly jammers to interfere the eavesdropper, therefore increasing its secrecy capacit; and the friendly jammers charge the source with a certain price for the jamming. There is a tradeo® for the price: If the price is too low, the pro¯t of the jammers is low; and if the price is too high, the source would not buy the \service" (jamming power) or would buy it from other jammers. To analyze the game outcome, we de¯ne and in- vestigate a Stackelburg game and construct a distributed algorithm. Our analysis and simulation results show the ef- fectiveness of friendly jamming and the tradeo® for setting the price. The fancy title comes from the fact that it is similar to a scenario where the main character, namely the \source" tries to send a dating message to a lady (the in- tended destination), whose poor boyfriend plays the role of the eavesdropper that may hear the message. Friends of the source, the so called \friendly jammers," try to distract the boyfriend, so that the dating message can be secretly trans- mitted. The game is de¯ned in order to derive what is the optimal price that the friends can charge for this \friendly" action

Improved Wireless Secrecy Capacity using Distributed Auction Theory

International audiencePhysical layer security is an emerging security area that explores possibilities of achieving perfect secrecy data transmission between the intended network nodes, while possible malicious nodes that eavesdrop the communication obtain zero information. The so-called secrecy capacity can be improved using friendly jammers that introduce extra interference to the eavesdroppers. Here, we investigate the interaction between the multiple source-destination links and a friendly jammer who assists by “masking” the eavesdropper. In order to obtain a distributed solution, one possibility is to introduce a distributed auction theoretic approach. The auction is defined such that the source-destination links provide bids for the jammer to interfere the eavesdropper, therefore increasing their secrecy capacities. We propose a distributed auction using the share auction and iteratively updating the bids. To compare with the performances, we construct a centralized solution and a VCG auction, which cannot be implemented in practice. Our analysis and simulation results show the effectiveness of friendly jamming and convergence of the proposed scheme. The distributed game solution is shown to have similar performances to those of the centralized ones

Enhancing secrecy rate in cognitive radio networks via stackelberg game

In this paper, a game theory based cooperation scheme is investigated to enhance the physical layer security in both primary and secondary transmissions of a cognitive radio network (CRN). In CRNs, the primary network may decide to lease its own spectrum for a fraction of time to the secondary nodes in exchange of appropriate remuneration. We consider the secondary transmitter node as a trusted relay for primary transmission to forward primary messages in a decode-and-forward (DF) fashion and, at the same time, allows part of its available power to be used to transmit artificial noise (i.e., jamming signal) to enhance primary and secondary secrecy rates. In order to allocate power between message and jamming signals, we formulate and solve the optimization problem for maximizing the secrecy rates under malicious attempts from EDs. We then analyse the cooperation between the primary and secondary nodes from a game-theoretic perspective where we model their interaction as a Stackelberg game with a theoretically proved and computed Stackelberg equilibrium. We show that the spectrum leasing based on trading secondary access for cooperation by means of relay and jammer is a promising framework for enhancing security in CRNs