Information-Theoretically Secure Communication Under Channel Uncertainty

Secure communication under channel uncertainty is an important and challenging problem in physical-layer security and cryptography. In this dissertation, we take a fundamental information-theoretic view at three concrete settings and use them to shed insight into efficient secure communication techniques for different scenarios under channel uncertainty. First, a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) Gaussian broadcast channel with two receivers and two messages: a common message intended for both receivers (i.e., channel uncertainty for decoding the common message at the receivers) and a confidential message intended for one of the receivers but needing to be kept asymptotically perfectly secret from the other is considered. A matrix characterization of the secrecy capacity region is established via a channel-enhancement argument and an extremal entropy inequality previously established for characterizing the capacity region of a degraded compound MIMO Gaussian broadcast channel. Second, a multilevel security wiretap channel where there is one possible realization for the legitimate receiver channel but multiple possible realizations for the eavesdropper channel (i.e., channel uncertainty at the eavesdropper) is considered. A coding scheme is designed such that the number of secure bits delivered to the legitimate receiver depends on the actual realization of the eavesdropper channel. More specifically, when the eavesdropper channel realization is weak, all bits delivered to the legitimate receiver need to be secure. In addition, when the eavesdropper channel realization is strong, a prescribed part of the bits needs to remain secure. We call such codes security embedding codes, referring to the fact that high-security bits are now embedded into the low-security ones. We show that the key to achieving efficient security embedding is to jointly encode the low-security and high-security bits. In particular, the low-security bits can be used as (part of) the transmitter randomness to protect the high-security ones. Finally, motivated by the recent interest in building secure, robust and efficient distributed information storage systems, the problem of secure symmetrical multilevel diversity coding (S-SMDC) is considered. This is a setting where there are channel uncertainties at both the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. The problem of encoding individual sources is first studied. A precise characterization of the entire admissible rate region is established via a connection to the problem of secure coding over a three-layer wiretap network and utilizing some basic polyhedral structure of the admissible rate region. Building on this result, it is then shown that the simple coding strategy of separately encoding individual sources at the encoders can achieve the minimum sum rate for the general S-SMDC problem

A Broadcast Approach for Fading Wiretap Channels

A (layered) broadcast approach is studied for the fading wiretap channel without the channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter. Two broadcast schemes, based on superposition coding and embedded coding respectively, are developed to encode information into a number of layers and use stochastic encoding to keep the corresponding information secret from an eavesdropper. The layers that can be successfully and securely transmitted are determined by the channel states to the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. The advantage of these broadcast approaches is that the transmitter does not need to know the CSI to the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper, but the scheme still adapts to the channel states of the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper. Three scenarios of block fading wiretap channels with a stringent delay constraint are studied, in which either the legitimate receiver’s channel, the eavesdropper’s channel, or both channels are fading. For each scenario, the secrecy rate that can be achieved via the broadcast approach developed in this paper is derived, and the optimal power allocation over the layers (or the conditions on the optimal power allocation) is also characterized. A notion of probabilistic secrecy is also introduced and studied for scenarios when the eavesdropper’s channel is fading, which characterizes the probability that a certain secrecy rate of decoded messages is achieved during one block. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the impact of the channel state information at the transmitter and the channel fluctuation of the eavesdropper on the average secrecy rate. These examples also demonstrate the advantage of the proposed broadcast approach over the compound channel approach

Sustainable Secure Management Against APT Attacks for Intelligent Embedded-Enabled Smart Manufacturing

Intelligent embedded-enable smart manufacturing is an important infrastructure for future industries. Increasing security threats are disturbing the normal operations of smart manufacturing. As a novel type of threat, an advanced persistent threat (APT) has the novel features of strong concealment, latency, and long-term entanglement, which can penetrate the core systems of smart manufacturing, especially for intelligent embedded systems, and cause great destruction from the cyber side to physical side. However, the existing security schemes cannot provide sustainable resource management, which causes the core system in smart manufacturing not to perform sustainable secure detection and defense against APTs. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a sustainable secure management mechanism for smart manufacturing against APTs. The proposed mechanism includes two parts: sustainable threat intelligence analysis and sustainable secure resource management. Sustainable threat intelligence analysis provides sustainable discovery of the indications of potential APTs, which has features of a weak signal, low correlation, and slow time variation. The sustainable secure resource management provides deep and continuous protection for intelligent embedded systems in smart manufacturing. The evaluations show the defense capabilities and the feasibility of the proposed mechanism