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

On the Security of Millimeter Wave Vehicular Communication Systems using Random Antenna Subsets

Millimeter wave (mmWave) vehicular communica tion systems have the potential to improve traffic efficiency and safety. Lack of secure communication links, however, may lead to a formidable set of abuses and attacks. To secure communication links, a physical layer precoding technique for mmWave vehicular communication systems is proposed in this paper. The proposed technique exploits the large dimensional antenna arrays available at mmWave systems to produce direction dependent transmission. This results in coherent transmission to the legitimate receiver and artificial noise that jams eavesdroppers with sensitive receivers. Theoretical and numerical results demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed technique and show that the proposed technique provides high secrecy throughput when compared to conventional array and switched array transmission techniques

Physical-layer Security of Uplink mmWave Transmissions in Cellular V2X Networks

In this paper, we investigate physical-layer security of the uplink millimeter wave communications for a cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) network comprised of a large number of base stations (BSs) and different categories of V2X nodes, including vehicles, pedestrians, and road side units. Considering the dynamic change and randomness of the topology of the C-V2X network, we model the roadways, the V2X nodes on each roadway, and the BSs by a Poisson line process, a 1D Poisson point process (PPP), and a 2D PPP, respectively. We propose two uplink association schemes for a typical vehicle, namely, the smallest-distance association (SDA) scheme and the largest-power association (LPA) scheme, and we establish a tractable analytical framework to comprehensively assess the security performance of the uplink transmission, by leveraging the stochastic geometry theory. Specifically, for each association scheme, we first obtain new expressions for the association probability of the typical vehicle, and then derive the overall connection outage probability and secrecy outage probability by calculating the Laplace transform of the aggregate interference power. Numerical results are presented to validate our theoretical analysis, and we also provide interesting insights into how the security performance is influenced by various system parameters, including the densities of V2X nodes and BSs. Moreover, we show that the LPA scheme outperforms the SDA scheme in terms of secrecy throughput

RIS-Aided Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems for 6G: Fundamentals, System Design, and Applications

An introduction of intelligent interconnectivity for people and things has posed higher demands and more challenges for sixth-generation (6G) networks, such as high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, ultra-low latency, and ultra-high reliability. Cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), also called intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), are two promising technologies for coping with these unprecedented demands. Given their distinct capabilities, integrating the two technologies to further enhance wireless network performances has received great research and development attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of research on RIS-aided CF mMIMO wireless communication systems. We first introduce system models focusing on system architecture and application scenarios, channel models, and communication protocols. Subsequently, we summarize the relevant studies on system operation and resource allocation, providing in-depth analyses and discussions. Following this, we present practical challenges faced by RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems, particularly those introduced by RIS, such as hardware impairments and electromagnetic interference. We summarize corresponding analyses and solutions to further facilitate the implementation of RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems. Furthermore, we explore an interplay between RIS-aided CF mMIMO and other emerging 6G technologies, such as next-generation multiple-access (NGMA), simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), and millimeter wave (mmWave). Finally, we outline several research directions for future RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figure

Security for 5G Mobile Wireless Networks

The advanced features of 5G mobile wireless network systems yield new security requirements and challenges. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on security of 5G wireless network systems compared to the traditional cellular networks. The paper starts with a review on 5G wireless networks particularities as well as on the new requirements and motivations of 5G wireless security. The potential attacks and security services with the consideration of new service requirements and new use cases in 5G wireless networks are then summarized. The recent development and the existing schemes for the 5G wireless security are presented based on the corresponding security services including authentication, availability, data confidentiality, key management and privacy. The paper further discusses the new security features involving different technologies applied to 5G such as heterogeneous networks, device-to-device communications, massive multiple-input multiple-output, software defined networks and Internet of Things. Motivated by these security research and development activities, we propose a new 5G wireless security architecture, based on which the analysis of identity management and flexible authentication is provided. As a case study, we explore a handover procedure as well as a signaling load scheme to show the advantage of the proposed security architecture. The challenges and future directions of 5G wireless security are finally summarized

An Overview of Physical Layer Security with Finite-Alphabet Signaling

Providing secure communications over the physical layer with the objective of achieving perfect secrecy without requiring a secret key has been receiving growing attention within the past decade. The vast majority of the existing studies in the area of physical layer security focus exclusively on the scenarios where the channel inputs are Gaussian distributed. However, in practice, the signals employed for transmission are drawn from discrete signal constellations such as phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. Hence, understanding the impact of the finite-alphabet input constraints and designing secure transmission schemes under this assumption is a mandatory step towards a practical implementation of physical layer security. With this motivation, this article reviews recent developments on physical layer security with finite-alphabet inputs. We explore transmit signal design algorithms for single-antenna as well as multi-antenna wiretap channels under different assumptions on the channel state information at the transmitter. Moreover, we present a review of the recent results on secure transmission with discrete signaling for various scenarios including multi-carrier transmission systems, broadcast channels with confidential messages, cognitive multiple access and relay networks. Throughout the article, we stress the important behavioral differences of discrete versus Gaussian inputs in the context of the physical layer security. We also present an overview of practical code construction over Gaussian and fading wiretap channels, and we discuss some open problems and directions for future research.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (1st Revision