Secret Key Agreement: Fundamental Limits and Practical Challenges

Rezki, Zouheir; Zorgui, Marwen; Alomair, Basel; Alouini, Mohamed‐Slim

doi:10.1109/mwc.2017.1500365wc

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Depending on the specific realization, secret key agreement has two models, namely the channel model and source model (Chapter 4 of [47]). The channel model-based key agreement operates similarly to the wiretap channel model, which intends to securely transmit keys from Alice to Bob, and agree on the same key via a two-way public channel [48]- [50]. However, it also faces the same challenges as keyless security in terms of its practical implementation.…”

Section: Key Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Frontier for IoT Security Emerging From Three Decades of Key Generation Relying on Wireless Channels

et al. 2020

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The Internet of Things (IoT) is a transformative technology, which is revolutionizing our everyday life by connecting everyone and everything together. The massive number of devices are preferably connected wirelessly because of the easy installment and flexible deployment. However, the broadcast nature of the wireless medium makes the information accessible to everyone including malicious users, which should hence be protected by encryption. Unfortunately, the secure and efficient provision of cryptographic keys for low-cost IoT devices is challenging; weak keys have resulted in severe security breaches, as evidenced by numerous notorious cyberattacks. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of lightweight security solutions conceived for IoT, relying on key generation from wireless channels. We first introduce the key generation fundamentals and protocols. We then examine how to apply this emerging technique to secure IoT and demonstrate that key generation relying on the randomness of wireless channels is eminently suitable for IoT. This paper reviews the extensive research efforts in the areas of theoretical modelling, simulation based validation and experimental exploration. We finally discuss the hurdles and challenges that key generation is facing and suggest future work to make key generation a reliable and secure solution to safeguard the IoT.

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Section: Key Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Frontier for IoT Security Emerging From Three Decades of Key Generation Relying on Wireless Channels

et al. 2020

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“…Most of secret-key agreement or generation methods require the assumptions of time division duplex (TDD) channel reciprocity and near-perfect CSI [23][24][25]. The strong assumptions on CSI have hindered the industrial applications of PLS [26]. When considering realistic CSI errors, the key agreement ratio between legitimate parties is far from perfect in practice [27][28][29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Artificially Time-Varying Differential MIMO for Achieving Practical Physical Layer Security

Ishikawa

Hamamreh

Okamoto

et al. 2021

IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc.

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In this paper, we propose a differential multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme based on the novel concept of chaos-based time-varying unitary matrices to demonstrate-for the first time in the literature-the ability of differential encoding in achieving practical physical layer security even without the need for using channel estimation. In the proposed scheme, an erroneous secret key, which is extracted from the wireless nature, is used to initialize a chaos sequence that is responsible for generating artificially time-varying unitary matrices capable of obfuscating the transmitted data symbols from illegitimate eavesdroppers. Contrary to conventional studies, the key agreement ratio in this study is assumed to be imperfect, which is often true and very realistic in high-mobility scenarios. Following this, we conceive a new calibration algorithm for reconciling the chaotic sequence generated at the legitimate parties, thus making this calibration algorithm a unique, novel solution to the key sharing problem of conventional chaos-based communication techniques, which has been overlooked over the past few decades. It is found out that differential encoding obviates additional complexity and insecurity in dealing with channel estimation, whereas an eavesdropper must tackle the complicated differentially encoded patterns, which have an exponentially increasing complexity order. In addition, the obtained simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can outperform conventional chaos-based MIMO schemes that assume perfect channel knowledge.

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“…Wireless communications are vulnerable to being attacked due to the inherent broadcast nature of radio propagation [1]. Encryption and authentication based on symmetric-key are important measures to ensure the security of wireless network, where the critical issue is how to distribute secret keys to the legitimate partners without leaking any information to the eavesdroppers [2]. Conventionally, some computational complexity based methods are developed, such as Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol, which works on the assumption that the eavesdroppers are unable to solve a certain mathematical problem in feasible time [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secret Key Generation With Cross Multiplication of Two-Way Random Signals

et al. 2019

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The secret key generation rate (SKGR) of current physical layer security methods is not high enough for practical requirements. A novel SKG method based on the cross multiplication (XM) of twoway random signals is proposed for TDD-MIMO system. The principle concealed beneath the XM method is found that the XM operation not only derives the common random source for both legitimate partners, but also employs new generated cross-terms due to bilinear operation to provide more measurements of the random source and more secret keys accordingly, which is essentially superior to the existing paired multiplication (PM) method. Then, the theoretical SKGR of two-way random signals is analyzed and it is validated that SKGR is determined by the randomness of the reciprocal channel and the two-way secure transmission rates collectively. Furthermore, SKGR of XM and PM methods are derived in closed-form respectively under infinite antenna condition and the former shows a linear increase with the channel coherence interval, which are also approximately valid for finite antenna. The innovative conclusion means the slow-changing property of some channel environments can be further exploited and the proposed XM method can be applied to solve the low SKGR problem in static or quasi-static channel environment such as IoT. Finally, the simulations verify the theoretical results and show that the XM method achieves several orders of magnitude higher SKGR than the PM method.

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Secret Key Agreement: Fundamental Limits and Practical Challenges

Cited by 14 publications

References 15 publications

A New Frontier for IoT Security Emerging From Three Decades of Key Generation Relying on Wireless Channels

A New Frontier for IoT Security Emerging From Three Decades of Key Generation Relying on Wireless Channels

Artificially Time-Varying Differential MIMO for Achieving Practical Physical Layer Security

Secret Key Generation With Cross Multiplication of Two-Way Random Signals

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