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

Techniques for Enhanced Physical-Layer Security

Information-theoretic security--widely accepted as the strictest notion of security--relies on channel coding techniques that exploit the inherent randomness of propagation channels to strengthen the security of communications systems. Within this paradigm, we explore strategies to improve secure connectivity in a wireless network. We first consider the intrinsically secure communications graph (iS-graph), a convenient representation of the links that can be established with information-theoretic security on a large-scale network. We then propose and characterize two techniques--sectorized transmission and eavesdropper neutralization--which are shown to dramatically enhance the connectivity of the iS-graph.Comment: Pre-print, IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM'10), Miami, FL, Dec. 201

Channel-based key generation for encrypted body-worn wireless sensor networks

Body-worn sensor networks are important for rescue-workers, medical and many other applications. Sensitive data are often transmitted over such a network, motivating the need for encryption. Body-worn sensor networks are deployed in conditions where the wireless communication channel varies dramatically due to fading and shadowing, which is considered a disadvantage for communication. Interestingly, these channel variations can be employed to extract a common encryption key at both sides of the link. Legitimate users share a unique physical channel and the variations thereof provide data series on both sides of the link, with highly correlated values. An eavesdropper, however, does not share this physical channel and cannot extract the same information when intercepting the signals. This paper documents a practical wearable communication system implementing channel-based key generation, including an implementation and a measurement campaign comprising indoor as well as outdoor measurements. The results provide insight into the performance of channel-based key generation in realistic practical conditions. Employing a process known as key reconciliation, error free keys are generated in all tested scenarios. The key-generation system is computationally simple and therefore compatible with the low-power micro controllers and low-data rate transmissions commonly used in wireless sensor networks

Efficient Wireless Security Through Jamming, Coding and Routing

There is a rich recent literature on how to assist secure communication between a single transmitter and receiver at the physical layer of wireless networks through techniques such as cooperative jamming. In this paper, we consider how these single-hop physical layer security techniques can be extended to multi-hop wireless networks and show how to augment physical layer security techniques with higher layer network mechanisms such as coding and routing. Specifically, we consider the secure minimum energy routing problem, in which the objective is to compute a minimum energy path between two network nodes subject to constraints on the end-to-end communication secrecy and goodput over the path. This problem is formulated as a constrained optimization of transmission power and link selection, which is proved to be NP-hard. Nevertheless, we show that efficient algorithms exist to compute both exact and approximate solutions for the problem. In particular, we develop an exact solution of pseudo-polynomial complexity, as well as an epsilon-optimal approximation of polynomial complexity. Simulation results are also provided to show the utility of our algorithms and quantify their energy savings compared to a combination of (standard) security-agnostic minimum energy routing and physical layer security. In the simulated scenarios, we observe that, by jointly optimizing link selection at the network layer and cooperative jamming at the physical layer, our algorithms reduce the network energy consumption by half

Wireless Secrecy in Large-Scale Networks

The ability to exchange secret information is critical to many commercial, governmental, and military networks. The intrinsically secure communications graph (iS-graph) is a random graph which describes the connections that can be securely established over a large-scale network, by exploiting the physical properties of the wireless medium. This paper provides an overview of the main properties of this new class of random graphs. We first analyze the local properties of the iS-graph, namely the degree distributions and their dependence on fading, target secrecy rate, and eavesdropper collusion. To mitigate the effect of the eavesdroppers, we propose two techniques that improve secure connectivity. Then, we analyze the global properties of the iS-graph, namely percolation on the infinite plane, and full connectivity on a finite region. These results help clarify how the presence of eavesdroppers can compromise secure communication in a large-scale network.Comment: To appear: Proc. IEEE Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA'11), San Diego, CA, Feb. 2011, pp. 1-10, Invited Pape

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