Wiretap Channel Research Articles

Secure communication over RIS-aided underlay CR MIMO wiretap channel without Eve’s CSI

This paper investigates a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided underlay cognitive radio (CR) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wiretap channel where the secondary transmitter (ST) communicates with primary user (PU) and secondary user (SU) in the absence of the eavesdropper’s (Eve’s) channel state information (CSI). To enhance the secrecy performance in CR MIMO wiretap channel, the power of useful signal is minimized at ST, and then the residual power is further utilized to design artificial noise (AN) based on statistical CSI at ST. Specifically, we first optimize the transmit covariance matrix at ST and the diagonal phase-shifting matrix at RIS jointly leveraging large-system approximation results. Then the power allocation for SU is optimized to obtain the minimum transmit power of useful information at ST. Besides, we further design AN with the residual power by aligning it into the null space of the SU channel and thus avert the harmful effects of AN to improve the secure communication quality of SU. Finally, through numerical simulations, we illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and validate the existence of a trade-off between the quality-of-service (QoS) at SU and secrecy rate.

On the Secure Performance of Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Assisted HARQ Systems

This paper analyzes the physical layer security performance of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) systems with the assistance of an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) and aims to reveal the primary factors that enhance PLS. First, closed-form expressions for the connection outage probability (COP) and secrecy outage probability (SOP) in HARQ with chase combining (HARQ-CC) are acquired using the generalized-K (KG) distribution. Then, these two critical metrics are derived while adopting HARQ with incremental redundancy (HARQ-IR), resorting to the mixture gamma (MG) distribution and the Mellin transform. Diversity and coding gain are also addressed through an asymptotic analysis of the COP and SOP. Finally, an evaluation of the numerical results demonstrates that a greater gain in the main channel and the wiretap channel can be produced by increasing the number of meta-surfaces rather than increasing the maximum transmission number, except for the higher signal-to-noise (SNR) region of HARQ-IR where the latter is preferred. This finding provides a significant guidance for the joint configuration of IRS and HARQ to achieve secure communication.

Short Blocklength Wiretap Channel Codes via Deep Learning: Design and Performance Evaluation

We design short blocklength codes for the Gaussian wiretap channel under information-theoretic security guarantees. Our approach consists in decoupling the reliability and secrecy constraints in our code design. Specifically, we handle the reliability constraint via an autoencoder, and handle the secrecy constraint with hash functions. For blocklengths smaller than or equal to 128, we evaluate through simulations the probability of error at the legitimate receiver and the leakage at the eavesdropper for our code construction. This leakage is defined as the mutual information between the confidential message and the eavesdropper’s channel observations, and is empirically measured via a neural network-based mutual information estimator. Our simulation results provide examples of codes with positive secrecy rates that outperform the best known achievable secrecy rates obtained non-constructively for the Gaussian wiretap channel. Additionally, we show that our code design is suitable for the compound and arbitrarily varying Gaussian wiretap channels, for which the channel statistics are not perfectly known but only known to belong to a pre-specified uncertainty set. These models not only capture uncertainty related to channel statistics estimation, but also scenarios where the eavesdropper jams the legitimate transmission or influences its own channel statistics by changing its location.

Joint Precoding and Artificial Noise Design for MU-MIMO Wiretap Channels

Secure precoding superimposed with artificial noise (AN) is a promising transmission technique to improve security by harnessing the superposition nature of the wireless medium. However, finding a jointly optimal precoding and AN structure is very challenging in downlink multi-user multiple-input multiple-output wiretap channels with multiple eavesdroppers. The major challenge in maximizing the secrecy rate arises from the non-convexity and non-smoothness of the rate function. Traditionally, an alternating optimization framework that identifies beamforming vectors and AN covariance matrix has been adopted; yet this alternating approach has limitations in maximizing the secrecy rate. In this paper, we put forth a novel secure precoding algorithm that jointly and simultaneously optimizes the beams and AN covariance matrix for maximizing the secrecy rate when a transmitter has either perfect or partial channel knowledge of eavesdroppers. To this end, we first establish an approximate secrecy rate in a smooth function. Then, we derive the first-order optimality condition in the form of the nonlinear eigenvalue problem (NEP). We present a computationally efficient algorithm to identify the principal eigenvector of the NEP as a suboptimal solution for secure precoding. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed methods improve secrecy rate significantly compared to the existing methods.

Impact of Fading Correlation and Finite-Blocklength Regimes on Secrecy

This paper examines secrecy performance of a three-point system|where a main channel and a wiretap channel are present|under outdated channel state information (oCSI), correlated Rayleigh fading and finite-blocklength (FBL) regimes. A main channel and a wiretap channel experience oCSI severity, which impacts the system's average secrecy capacity (ASC) and secrecy outage probability (SOP). Compact expressions for the ASC and SOP will be offered. Hypothetical bounds give fresh insight into secrecy performance. Impact of FBL regimes on secrecy performance is also shown.

SNR-Outage-Based Robust Artificial Noise-Aided Beamforming for Correlated MISO Wiretap Channels Under Gaussian Channel Uncertainties

This article studies robust artificial noise-aided beamforming for correlated multiple-input-single-output eavesdropping channels under Gaussian channel uncertainties. In the case of high reception correlation, under a secrecy outage probability constraint, the achievable secrecy rate is very small and does not satisfy the requirements of some high-rate applications. In view of this, optimization designs on the premise of quality-of-service (QoS) assurance are considered. By exploiting the correlation and employing a novel QoS criterion of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) outage probability, two optimization problems, namely minimization of the target SNR at eavesdroppers and maximization of the loose secrecy rate, are formulated. Despite less rigorous secrecy, a much lower target SNR at eavesdroppers and a higher loose secrecy rate are achieved. Compared with the conventional SNR-QoS, SNR-outage-QoS is a more flexible criterion that can be applied to Gaussian channel uncertainties, although challenging probabilistic constraints are introduced into the optimization problems. To make the optimization problems feasible, two approaches, namely, the Bernstein-type inequality approach and ellipsoid bounding approach, are applied to approximate the probabilistic constraints. Simulation results show that the robust transmit designs contribute to a secrecy performance gain from the perspective of SNR-outage-QoS.

Double-Staged Syndrome Coding Scheme for Improving Information Transmission Security over the Wiretap Channel

This paper presents a study of a syndrome coding scheme for different binary linear error correcting codes that refer to the code families such as BCH, BKLC, Golay, and Hamming. The study is implemented on Wyner’s wiretap channel model when the main channel is error-free and the eavesdropper channel is a binary symmetric channel with crossover error probability (0 < Pe ≤ 0.5) to show the security performance of error correcting codes while used in the single-staged syndrome coding scheme in terms of equivocation rate. Generally, these codes are not designed for secure information transmission, and they have low equivocation rates when they are used in the syndrome coding scheme. Therefore, to improve the transmission security when using these codes, a modified encoder which consists of a double-staged syndrome coding scheme, is proposed. Two models are implemented in this paper: the first model utilizes one encoding stage of the conventional syndrome coding scheme. In contrast, the second model utilizes two encoding stages of the syndrome coding scheme to improve the results obtained from the first model. The C++ programming language, in conjunction with the NTL library, is used for obtaining simulation results for the implemented models. The equivocation rate results from the second model were compared to both the results of the first model and of the unsecured transmission (transmission of data without encryption). The comparison revealed that the security performance of the second model is better than the first model and the insecure system, as the equivocation for all the simulated codes over the proposed model reaches at least %97 at the Pe = 0.1.

Joint random mapping and artificial noise insertion for securing GPSM access in correlated eavesdropper channels

AbstractThis paper proposes combined precoding and artificial noise‐insertion scheme to enhance the secrecy of generalized precoded spatial modulation when the wiretap channel is partially correlated with the legitimate channel. It is shown that randomizing the modulated and spatial symbols prior to artificial noise insertion can significantly enhance secrecy even with a highly correlated eavesdropper channel. The proposed scheme exploits the channel state information (CSI) of the legitimate channel without requiring knowledge of the eavesdropper channel. The security of the proposed system depends on the amount of power allocation and the number of active receive antennas. Simulation results validate the proposed security scheme and show that the hybrid approach proposed outperforms the one that relies on artificial noise transmission.

Explicit Wiretap Channel Codes via Source Coding, Universal Hashing, and Distribution Approximation, When the Channels’ Statistics are Uncertain

We consider wiretap channels with uncertainty on the eavesdropper channel under (i) noisy blockwise type II, (ii) compound, or (iii) arbitrarily varying models. We present explicit wiretap codes that can handle these models in a unified manner and only rely on three primitives, namely source coding with side information, universal hashing, and distribution approximation. Our explicit wiretap codes achieve the best known single-letter achievable rates, previously obtained non-constructively, for the models considered. Our results are obtained for strong secrecy, do not require a pre-shared secret between the legitimate users, and do not require any symmetry properties on the channel. An extension of our results to compound main channels is also derived via new capacity-achieving polar coding schemes for compound settings.

What Physical Layer Security Can Do for 6G Security

While existing security protocols were designed with a focus on the core network, the enhancement of the security of the B5G access network becomes of critical importance. Despite the strengthening of 5G security protocols with respect to LTE, there are still open issues that have not been fully addressed. This work is articulated around the premise that rethinking the security design bottom up, starting at the physical layer, is not only viable in 6G but importantly, arises as an efficient way to overcome security hurdles in novel use cases, notably massive machine type communications (mMTC), ultra reliable low latency communications (URLLC) and autonomous cyberphysical systems. Unlike existing review papers that treat physical layer security orthogonally to cryptography, we will try to provide a few insights of underlying connections. Discussing many practical issues, we will present a comprehensive review of the state-of the-art in i) secret key generation from shared randomness, ii) the wiretap channels and fundamental limits, iii) authentication of devices using physical unclonable functions (PUFs), localization and multi-factor authentication, and, iv) jamming attacks at the physical layer. We finally conclude with the proposers' aspirations for the 6G security landscape, in the hyper-connectivity and semantic communications era.

Secure Transmission Over Multiple Access Wiretap Channel by Cross-Time Interference Injection

Due to the openness of wireless communication, information transmitted in the multiple access channel is vulnerable to eavesdropping by illegitimate users. Classic artificial noise-assisted schemes can improve security but are not suitable for power-constrained users. To address this problem, we propose a cross-time interference injection scheme in this paper, which improves security by introducing cross-time self-interference and inter-user interference, and does not require artificial noise. The proposed scheme exploits the properties of the Hadamard matrix and the wireless channels, so that the eavesdropping channel suffers from stronger interference than the legitimate channel. We analyze the security performance when both the legitimate receiver and the eavesdropper exploit the successive interference cancellation (SIC) scheme, including the secrecy sum rate, the secrecy capacity, and the secrecy outage probability. We further investigate the effect of the number of eavesdropper’s antennas, the number of legitimate users, and the number of time slots used by the scheme on the security performance, and obtain the corresponding relationship between these parameters when achieving a positive secrecy rate. Finally, simulation results corroborate our theoretical analysis.

Secure MIMO systems with nonlinear energy harvesting using optimal transmit antenna selection over [formula omitted] fading channels

This paper investigates the secrecy performance of multiple-input multiple-output systems with a nonlinear energy harvesting (EH) scheme used at the transmitter to improve energy efficiency and extend the lifetime of energy-constrained systems. Most of the current literature investigates cognitive radio networks with linear EH model. However, in order to realize more realistic scenarios due to hardware constraints, such as the saturation and sensitivity characteristics of the EH components, a nonlinear EH model is examined here and compared with a simpler linear EH scheme. In particular, a practical nonlinear energy harvester model with a source, a destination, an active eavesdropper, and a power beacon is considered under generalized α−μ fading conditions. Here, the eavesdropper can overhear the data transmission messages when the source communicates with the destination using wiretap channels. Furthermore, the source employs all its antennas to combine the radio frequency signals emitted by the power beacon via the maximal ratio combining (MRC) scheme. Moreover, the MRC scheme is used at the destination and eavesdropper to improve the signal’s quality (i.e., at the receiver side). Closed-form expressions for the lower bound and asymptotic security performance are investigated. Next, optimal antenna selection (OAS) scheme and traditional space–time transmission (STT) scheme are compared based on whether the channel state information (CSI) of the wiretap link is available. In addition to deriving the secrecy diversity order and secrecy array gain, asymptotic closed-form analytical expressions for security performance and closed-form analytical expressions for the probability of strictly positive secrecy capacity are also derived for various selection schemes. Finally, numerical results indicate that, compared to the linear EH scheme with just minimal trade-offs, the nonlinear EH scheme represents more realistic and dependable outcomes.

PERFORMANCE OF SECURE COMMUNICATION OVER LAMBDA-FISHER-SNEDECOR FADING CHANNELS

In this paper, we investigate the physical layer security (PLS) of the traditional Wyner’s wiretap channel model. Secrecy performance analysis is performed assuming a presence of an active eavesdropper trying to overhear the confidential data transmission from the source node to the predefined destination. In what follows, we derive the lower bound of the secrecy outage probability, the strictly positive secrecy capacity as well as the average secrecy capacity, over the composite a-Fisher-Snedecor (a-F) fading environment. According to the analytical results, numerical results are also shown. The impact of the path loss component, the average signal-to-noise ratios over the main/wiretap channel as well as the impact of the fading, the non-linearity of the propagation medium and the shadowing shaping parameter on the PLS metrics is examined. The overall analysis and the obtained results have a high level of generality and also a high level of applicability since the a-F distribution was recently proposed, as the best fit distribution for the channel characterization of the device-to-device wireless communication in the future Beyond 5G networks.

Regularized artificial fast fading designs for secure transmission in multi-user MIMO wiretap channels

In this paper, we investigate a regularized artificial fast fading (AFF) design for multi-user multi-input multi-output (MIMO) wiretap channels. To solve the effective channel gain reduction issue in conventional zero-forcing (ZF) based approaches, we propose a regularized AFF beamforming method by applying the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) problem and Lagrangian dual analysis. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed MMSE based AFF scheme improves the error performance of the legitimate user compared to the conventional ZF AFF method while achieving the same low probability of interception at the eavesdropper for multi-user MIMO secure transmission systems.

Secure Satellite Transmission With Active Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface

The long distance characteristic of satellite transmission makes it difficult to achieve secure communication due to the highly correlated channels. This letter investigates secure satellite multicast transmission in the presence of an eavesdropper (Eve), where the direct links from the satellite to its users and Eve are blocked by obstacles, and an active reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is adopted to rebuild the satellite downlinks and eliminate the “double fading” effect. By assuming imperfect wiretap channel state information is available, our objective is to maximize the minimal secrecy energy efficiency while guaranteeing the transmit power budgets at the satellite and RIS. In order to solve the above intractable optimization problem, an alternating optimization scheme is proposed, where the successive convex approximation method and Nemirovski Lemma are utilized to obtain the beamforming weight vectors with a fixed reflective factor while the optimization of the reflective factor is solved using the S-Lemma with fixed beamforming weight vectors, iteratively. Finally, our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms the existing benchmark schemes.

Intelligent reflecting surface-aided MIMO secrecy rate maximization

This paper considers the intelligent reflecting surface-aided MIMO secrecy rate maximization. We apply the alternating optimization to maximize the secrecy rate of the MIMO wiretap channels. We first provide the closed-form solution to each subproblem of optimizing reflecting unit coefficient and show that the sequence generated by the coordinate descent method converges to a stationary point of the main optimization problem. Numerical results show that the intelligent reflecting surface significantly increases secrecy rates in MIMO wiretap channels.

Multicomponent Secure Transmission Based on GMFRFT With Imperfect CSI

In this letter, a robust multi-component secure transmission scheme based on general multi-fractional Fourier transform (GMFRFT) with imperfect channel state information (CSI) is proposed and analyzed. The scheme combines signal and spatial domains for transmitted components design, aiming at degrading the wiretap channel utilizing the energy distribution characteristics of GMFRFT. The inter-component interference is only formed at the eavesdropper because of the broken GMFRFT signal, and its effect is similar to artificial noise (AN). Considering the problem of AN leakage in traditional AN-based scheme under imperfect CSI, the proposed scheme does not consume extra power and can further improve the secrecy performance when the available spatial degrees of freedom are limited. Numerical results are carried out to demonstrate the secrecy performance of the proposed scheme.

Gaussian Multiuser Wiretap Channels in the Presence of a Jammer-Aided Eavesdropper.

This paper considers secure communication in the presence of an eavesdropper and a malicious jammer. The jammer is assumed to be oblivious of the communication signals emitted by the legitimate transmitter(s) but can employ any jamming strategy subject to a given power constraint and shares her jamming signal with the eavesdropper. Four such models are considered: (i) the Gaussian point-to-point wiretap channel; (ii) the Gaussian multiple-access wiretap channel; (iii) the Gaussian broadcast wiretap channel; and (iv) the Gaussian symmetric interference wiretap channel. The use of pre-shared randomness between the legitimate users is not allowed in our models. Inner and outer bounds are derived for these four models. For (i), the secrecy capacity is obtained. For (ii) and (iv) under a degraded setup, the optimal secrecy sum-rate is characterized. Finally, for (iii), ranges of model parameter values for which the inner and outer bounds coincide are identified.

A Proactive Eavesdropping Game in MIMO Systems Based on Multiagent Deep Reinforcement Learning

This paper considers an adversarial scenario between a legitimate eavesdropper and a suspicious communication pair. All three nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. The eavesdropper, which operates in a full-duplex model, aims to wiretap the dubious communication pair via proactive jamming. On the other hand, the suspicious transmitter, which can send artificial noise (AN) to disturb the wiretap channel, aims to guarantee secrecy. More specifically, the eavesdropper adjusts jamming power to enhance the wiretap rate, while the suspicious transmitter jointly adapts the transmit power and noise power against the eavesdropping. Considering the partial observation and complicated interactions between the eavesdropper and the suspicious pair in unknown system dynamics, we model the problem as an imperfect-information stochastic game. To approach the Nash equilibrium solution of the eavesdropping game, we develop a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) algorithm, termed neural fictitious self-play with soft actor-critic (NFSP-SAC), by combining the fictitious self-play (FSP) with a deep reinforcement learning algorithm, SAC. The introduction of SAC enables FSP to handle the problems with continuous and high dimension observation and action space. The simulation results demonstrate that the power allocation policies learned by our method empirically converge to a Nash equilibrium, while the compared reinforcement learning algorithms suffer from severe fluctuations during the learning process.

Secure UAV-to-Ground MIMO Communications: Joint Transceiver and Location Optimization

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are foreseen to constitute promising airborne communication devices as a benefit of their superior channel quality. But UAV-to-ground (U2G) communications are vulnerable to eavesdropping. Hence, we conceive a sophisticated physical layer security solution for improving the secrecy rate of multi-antenna aided U2G systems. Explicitly, the secrecy rate of the U2G MIMO wiretap channels is derived by using random matrix theory. The resultant explicit expression is then applied in the joint optimization of the MIMO transceiver and the UAV location relying on an alternating optimization technique. Our numerical results show that the joint transceiver and location optimization conceived facilitates secure communications even in the challenging scenario, where the legitimate channel of confidential information is inferior to the eavesdropping channel.