On the Interference Alignment Designs for Secure Multiuser MIMO Systems

In this paper, we propose two secure multiuser multiple-input multiple-output transmission approaches based on interference alignment (IA) in the presence of an eavesdropper. To deal with the information leakage to the eavesdropper as well as the interference signals from undesired transmitters (Txs) at desired receivers (Rxs), our approaches aim to design the transmit precoding and receive subspace matrices to minimize both the total inter-main-link interference and the wiretapped signals (WSs). The first proposed IA scheme focuses on aligning the WSs into proper subspaces while the second one imposes a new structure on the precoding matrices to force the WSs to zero. When the channel state information is perfectly known at all Txs, in each proposed IA scheme, the precoding matrices at Txs and the receive subspaces at Rxs or the eavesdropper are alternatively selected to minimize the cost function of an convex optimization problem for every iteration. We provide the feasible conditions and the proofs of convergence for both IA approaches. The simulation results indicate that our two IA approaches outperform the conventional IA algorithm in terms of average secrecy sum rate.Comment: Updated version, updated author list, accepted to be appear in IEICE Transaction

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 with Multiuser Scheduling in Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, we consider a cognitive radio network that consists of one cognitive base station (CBS) and multiple cognitive users (CUs) in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers, where CUs transmit their data packets to CBS under a primary user's quality of service (QoS) constraint while the eavesdroppers attempt to intercept the cognitive transmissions from CUs to CBS. We investigate the physical-layer security against eavesdropping attacks in the cognitive radio network and propose the user scheduling scheme to achieve multiuser diversity for improving the security level of cognitive transmissions with a primary QoS constraint. Specifically, a cognitive user (CU) that satisfies the primary QoS requirement and maximizes the achievable secrecy rate of cognitive transmissions is scheduled to transmit its data packet. For the comparison purpose, we also examine the traditional multiuser scheduling and the artificial noise schemes. We analyze the achievable secrecy rate and intercept probability of the traditional and proposed multiuser scheduling schemes as well as the artificial noise scheme in Rayleigh fading environments. Numerical results show that given a primary QoS constraint, the proposed multiuser scheduling scheme generally outperforms the traditional multiuser scheduling and the artificial noise schemes in terms of the achievable secrecy rate and intercept probability. In addition, we derive the diversity order of the proposed multiuser scheduling scheme through an asymptotic intercept probability analysis and prove that the full diversity is obtained by using the proposed multiuser scheduling.Comment: 12 pages. IEEE Transactions on Communications, 201

Rethinking Secure Precoding via Interference Exploitation: A Smart Eavesdropper Perspective

Based on the concept of constructive interference (CI), multiuser interference (MUI) has recently been shown to be beneficial for communication secrecy. A few CI-based secure precoding algorithms have been proposed that use both the channel state information (CSI) and knowledge of the instantaneous transmit symbols. In this paper, we examine the CI-based secure precoding problem with a focus on smart eavesdroppers that exploit statistical information gleaned from the precoded data for symbol detection. Moreover, the impact of correlation between the main and eavesdropper channels is taken into account. We first modify an existing CI-based preocding scheme to better utilize the destructive impact of the interference. Then, we point out the drawback of both the existing and the new modified CI-based precoders when faced with a smart eavesdropper. To address this deficiency, we provide a general principle for precoder design and then give two specific design examples. Finally, the scenario where the eavesdropper's CSI is unavailable is studied. Numerical results show that although our modified CI-based precoder can achieve a better energy-secrecy trade-off than the existing approach, both have a limited secrecy benefit. On the contrary, the precoders developed using the new CI-design principle can achieve a much improved trade-off and significantly degrade the eavesdropper's performance

Visible Light Communication Cyber Security Vulnerabilities For Indoor And Outdoor Vehicle-To-Vehicle Communication

Light fidelity (Li-Fi), developed from the approach of Visible Light Communication (VLC), is a great replacement or complement to existing radio frequency-based (RF) networks. Li-Fi is expected to be deployed in various environments were, due to Wi-Fi congestion and health limitations, RF should not be used. Moreover, VLC can provide the future fifth generation (5G) wireless technology with higher data rates for device connectivity which will alleviate the traffic demand. 5G is playing a vital role in encouraging the modern applications. In 2023, the deployment of all the cellular networks will reach more than 5 billion users globally. As a result, the security and privacy of 5G wireless networks is an essential problem as those modern applications are in people\u27s life everywhere. VLC security is as one of the core physical-layer security (PLS) solutions for 5G networks. Due to the fact that light does not penetrate through solid objects or walls, VLC naturally has higher security and privacy for indoor wireless networks compared to RF networks. However, the broadcasting nature of VLC caused concerns, e.g., eavesdropping, have created serious attention as it is a crucial step to validate the success of VLC in wild. The aim of this thesis is to properly address the security issues of VLC and further enhance the VLC nature security. We analyzed the secrecy performance of a VLC model by studying the characteristics of the transmitter, receiver and the visible light channel. Moreover, we mitigated the security threats in the VLC model for the legitimate user, by 1) implementing more access points (APs) in a multiuser VLC network that are cooperated, 2) reducing the semi-angle of LED to help improve the directivity and secrecy and, 3) using the protected zone strategy around the AP where eavesdroppers are restricted. According to the model\u27s parameters, the results showed that the secrecy performance in the proposed indoor VLC model and the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) VLC outdoor model using a combination of multiple PLS techniques as beamforming, secure communication zones, and friendly jamming is enhanced. The proposed model security performance was measured with respect to the signal to noise ratio (SNR), received optical power, and bit error rate (BER) Matlab simulation results

Multi-antenna relay network beamforming design for multiuser peer-to-peer communications.

In this work, we consider a multi-user peer-to-peer relay network with multiple multiantenna relays which employ amplify-and-forward relaying protocol. Assuming distributed relay beamforming strategy, we investigate the design of each relay processing matrix to minimize the per-antenna relay power usage for given users??? Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) targets. As the problem is NP-hard, we develop an approximate solution through the Lagrange dual domain. Through a sequence of transformations, we obtain a semi-closed form solution which can be determined by solving an efficient semi-definite programming problem. We also consider the semi-definite relaxation (SDR) approach. Compared with this SDR approach, the proposed solution has significantly lower computational complexity. The benefit of such a solution is apparent when the optimal solution can be obtained by both approaches. When the solution is suboptimal, simulations show that the SDR approach has better performance. Thus, we propose a combined method of the two approaches to trade-off performance and complexity. Simulations showed the effectiveness of such a combined method. In the next step, we change the previous objective and constraints to turn the optimization problem into a total power minimization problem for the relay network. We use an approximation by solving this problem in the Lagrange dual domain, and we finally obtain a semi-closed form solution through the dual approach. The use of the SDR approach to solve this problem is also discussed. After analysis, we find the two methods have an advantage over different aspects, thus we propose a combined method for this problem. We eventually compare the two combined methods to see the performance difference in the per-antenna power case and the total relay power case, and discuss reasons for this difference

Optimization of secure wireless communications for IoT networks in the presence of eavesdroppers

The problem motivates this paper is that securing the critical data of 5G based wireless IoT network is of significant importance. Wireless 5G IoT systems consist of a large number of devices (low-cost legitimate users), which are of low complexity and under strict energy constraints. Physical layer security (PLS) schemes, along with energy harvesting, have emerged as a potential candidate that provides an effective solution to address this issue. During the data collection process of IoT, PHY security techniques can exploit the characteristics of the wireless channel to ensure secure communication. This paper focuses on optimizing the secrecy rate for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) IoT system, considering that the malicious eavesdroppers can intercept the data. In particular, the main aim is to optimize the secrecy rate of the system under signal to interference noise ratio (SINR), energy harvesting (EH), and total transmits power constraints. We model our design as an optimization problem that advocates the use of additional noise to ensure secure communication and guarantees efficient wireless energy transfer. The primary problem is non-convex due to complex objective functions in terms of transmit beamforming matrix and power splitting ratios. We have considered both the perfect channel state information (CSI) and the imperfect CSI scenarios. To circumvent the non-convexity of the primary problem in perfect CSI case, we proposed a solution based on the concave-convex procedure (CCCP) iterative algorithm, which results in a maximum local solution for the secrecy rate. In the imperfect CSI scenario, we facilitate the use of S-procedure and present a solution based on the iterative successive convex approximation (SCA) approach. Simulation results present the validations of the proposed algorithms. The results provide an insightful view that the proposed iterative method based on the CCCP algorithm achieves higher secrecy rates and lower computational complexity in comparison to the other algorithms