Physical Layer Security in Future IoT Networks: Theories, Technologies, and Applications

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 14679

Special Issue Editors

College of Electronic Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Hefei 230037, China
Interests: 6G; physical layer security; IoT networks; reconfigurable intelligent surface; satellite communications

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Guest Editor
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China
Interests: 6G; physical layer security; edge computing; reconfigurable intelligent surface; UAV communications

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Computer and Software, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Interests: physical layer security; mobile edge computing; UAV communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
The Sixty-Third Research Institute, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing 210007, China
Interests: satellite communication; multi-access systems; relay networks (telecommunication); cognitive radio; telecommunication network
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the upcoming sixth generation (6G) wireless networks, billions of smart-devices with sensing, computing, and communicating capabilities are expected to be involved in the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm in order to support future diverse communication demands, such as machine-to-machine (M2M), device-to-device (D2D), and device-to-everything (D2E) communications, IoT, and Internet of Vehicles (IoV). On the other hand, wireless communication has become an indispensable part of people’s daily life; everyone and everything heavily rely on the wireless transmission of important/private information, such as credit cards, verification codes, commercial secrets, and military orders. Therefore, wireless security is viewed as a critical issue for future 6G and beyond networks for both civilians and the military. Different from the traditional cryptographic techniques, physical layer security is identified as a promising strategy through smartly exploiting the randomness characteristics of physical wireless channels to either enlarge the difference between legitimate and wiretap channels using signal processing techniques or generate the physical layer keys by taking wireless channels as random sources.

The research of physical layer security in future IoT networks is still in its infancy and calls for more extensive and in-depth research efforts. Towards that end, this Special Issue aims to provide a venue to exchange recent advances of theories, technologies, and applications in this topic. We look forward to the latest research findings and high-quality works in the novel area of physical layer security in future IoT networks. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • IoT networks;
  • Advanced signal processing of physical layer security;
  • Measurements and models of secure communication scenarios;
  • Stochastic secure network modeling;
  • Resource allocation and management;
  • Physical layer key generation;
  • Interference modeling, design, and mitigation;
  • Performance characterization and optimization design;
  • Artificial Intelligence/Machine learning enabled channel estimation, transmission design and optimization;
  • mmWave/TeraHertz communications;
  • Reconfigurable intelligent surface;
  • Multiple antenna technologies;
  • Integrated sensing and communication in IoT networks;
  • Physical layer security in UAV-based networks;
  • Physical layer security in cooperative relay networks;
  • Physical layer security in heterogeneous wireless network;
  • Cognitive radio based secure communications;
  • Physical layer security in satellite-terrestrial integrated networks;
  • Non-orthogonal multiple access based physical layer security;
  • Rate-splitting multiple access based physical layer security;
  • Spectrum and energy efficient communications;
  • Ultra-reliable and low-latency communications;
  • Edge-computing based secure communications.

Dr. Zhi Lin
Prof. Dr. Xiaoyan Hu
Prof. Dr. Bin Li
Prof. Dr. Kang An
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • IoT networks
  • advanced signal processing of physical layer security
  • measurements and models of secure communication scenarios
  • stochastic secure network modeling
  • resource allocation and management
  • physical layer key generation
  • interference modeling, design, and mitigation
  • performance characterization and optimization design
  • artificial intelligence/machine learning enabled channel estimation, transmission design and optimization
  • mmWave/TeraHertz communications
  • reconfigurable intelligent surface
  • multiple antenna technologies
  • integrated sensing and communication in IoT networks
  • physical layer security in UAV-based networks
  • physical layer security in cooperative relay networks
  • physical layer security in heterogeneous wireless network
  • cognitive radio-based secure communications
  • physical layer security in satellite-terrestrial integrated networks
  • non-orthogonal multiple access based physical layer security
  • rate-splitting multiple access based physical layer security
  • spectrum and energy efficient communications
  • ultra-reliable and low-latency communications
  • edge-computing-based secure communications

Published Papers (13 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 2757 KiB  
Article
Research on an Enhanced Multimodal Network for Specific Emitter Identification
by Heli Peng, Kai Xie and Wenxu Zou
Electronics 2024, 13(3), 651; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13030651 - 4 Feb 2024
Viewed by 599
Abstract
Specific emitter identification (SEI) refers to the task of distinguishing similar emitters, especially those of the same type and transmission parameters, which is one of the most critical tasks of electronic warfare. However, SEI is still a challenging task when a feature has [...] Read more.
Specific emitter identification (SEI) refers to the task of distinguishing similar emitters, especially those of the same type and transmission parameters, which is one of the most critical tasks of electronic warfare. However, SEI is still a challenging task when a feature has low physical representation. Feature representation largely determines the recognition results. Therefore, this article expects to move toward robust feature representation for SEI. Efficient multimodal strategies have great potential for applications using multimodal data and can further improve the performance of SEI. In this research, we introduce a multimodal emitter identification method that explores the application of multimodal data, time-series radar signals, and feature vector data to an enhanced transformer, which employs a conformer block to embed the raw data and integrates an efficient multimodal feature representation module. Moreover, we employ self-knowledge distillation to mitigate overconfident predictions and reduce intra-class variations. Our study reveals that multimodal data provide sufficient information for specific emitter identification. Simultaneously, we propose the CV-CutMixOut method to augment the time-domain signal. Extensive experiments on real radar datasets indicate that the proposed method achieves more accurate identification results and higher feature discriminability. Full article
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15 pages, 488 KiB  
Article
Guaranteeing Zero Secrecy Outage in Relaying Systems under Eavesdropper’s Arbitrary Location and Unlimited Number of Antennas
by Hien Q. Ta, Nga B. T. Nguyen, Khuong Ho-Van and Hoon Oh
Electronics 2023, 12(22), 4695; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12224695 - 18 Nov 2023
Viewed by 780
Abstract
This paper proposes a three-phase transmission scheme to ensure zero secrecy outage in decode-and-forward relay systems by using the strategies of artificial noise (AN) injection and channel state information (CSI) leakage avoidance. The zero-outage secrecy spectral efficiency (ZOSSE) and energy efficiency (ZOSEE) of [...] Read more.
This paper proposes a three-phase transmission scheme to ensure zero secrecy outage in decode-and-forward relay systems by using the strategies of artificial noise (AN) injection and channel state information (CSI) leakage avoidance. The zero-outage secrecy spectral efficiency (ZOSSE) and energy efficiency (ZOSEE) of the scheme are then analyzed. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the scheme can always achieve zero secrecy outage even when the eavesdropper has an unlimited number of antennas or is in an arbitrary location, which shows its practical applicability. The paper also shows that the ZOSSE increases with the transmit power and that both the ZOSSE and the ZOSEE are maximized when the relay is halfway between the transmitter and the receiver. This suggests that the placement of the helper node is important in securing the communication of two distant nodes. Full article
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15 pages, 836 KiB  
Article
RIS-Assisted Robust Beamforming for UAV Anti-Jamming and Eavesdropping Communications: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach
by Chao Zou, Cheng Li, Yong Li and Xiaojuan Yan
Electronics 2023, 12(21), 4490; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12214490 - 1 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1075
Abstract
The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has been widely recognized as a rising paradigm for physical layer security due to its potential to substantially adjust the electromagnetic propagation environment. In this regard, this paper adopted the RIS deployed on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) [...] Read more.
The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has been widely recognized as a rising paradigm for physical layer security due to its potential to substantially adjust the electromagnetic propagation environment. In this regard, this paper adopted the RIS deployed on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to enhance information transmission while defending against both jamming and eavesdropping attacks. Furthermore, an innovative deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach is proposed with the purpose of optimizing the power allocation of the base station (BS) and the discrete phase shifts of the RIS. Specifically, considering the imperfect illegitimate node’s channel state information (CSI), we first reformulated the non-convex and non-conventional original problem into a Markov decision process (MDP) framework. Subsequently, a noisy dueling double-deep Q-network with prioritized experience replay (Noisy-D3QN-PER) algorithm was developed with the objective of maximizing the achievable sum rate while ensuring the fulfillment of the security requirements. Finally, the numerical simulations showed that our proposed algorithm outperformed the baselines on the system rate and at transmission protection level. Full article
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16 pages, 993 KiB  
Article
Research on the Enhancement Method of Specific Emitter Open Set Recognition
by Chengyuan Sun, Yihang Du, Xiaoqiang Qiao, Hao Wu and Tao Zhang
Electronics 2023, 12(21), 4399; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12214399 - 24 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 826
Abstract
Open set recognition (OSR) aims at dealing with unknown classes that are not included in the train set. However, existing OSR methods rely on deep learning networks that perform supervised learning on known classes in the train set, resulting in poor performance when [...] Read more.
Open set recognition (OSR) aims at dealing with unknown classes that are not included in the train set. However, existing OSR methods rely on deep learning networks that perform supervised learning on known classes in the train set, resulting in poor performance when the unknown class is very similar to the known class. Considering the subtle individual differences under the same type in specific emitter identification (SEI) applications, it is difficult to distinguish between known classes and unknown classes in open set scenarios. This paper proposes a pseudo signal generation and recognition neural network (PSGRNN) to address relevant problems in this situation. PSGRNN applies complex-value convolution operations to accommodate IQ signal inputs. Its key idea is to utilize samples of known classes to generate pseudo samples of unknown classes. Then, the samples of known classes and the generated pseudo samples of unknown classes are jointly input into the neural network to construct a new classification task for training. Moreover, the center loss is improved by adding inter-class penalties to maximize the inter-class difference. This helps to learn useful information for separating known and unknown classes, resulting in clearer decision boundaries between the known and the unknown. Extensive experiments on various benchmark signal datasets indicate that the proposed method achieves more accurate and robust open set classification results, with an average accuracy improvement of 4.62%. Full article
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31 pages, 699 KiB  
Article
Adaptive Load Balancing for Dual-Mode Communication Networks in the Power Internet of Things
by Kunpeng Xu, Zheng Li, Yunyi Yan, Hongguang Dai, Xianhui Wang, Jinlei Chen and Zesong Fei
Electronics 2023, 12(20), 4366; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12204366 - 21 Oct 2023
Viewed by 988
Abstract
As an important part of the power Internet of Things, the dual-mode communication network that combines the high-speed power line carrier (HPLC) mode and high-speed radio frequency (HRF) mode is one of the hot directions in current research. Since non-uniform transmission demands for [...] Read more.
As an important part of the power Internet of Things, the dual-mode communication network that combines the high-speed power line carrier (HPLC) mode and high-speed radio frequency (HRF) mode is one of the hot directions in current research. Since non-uniform transmission demands for power consumption information can lead to link congestion among nodes, improving the network load-balancing performance becomes a critical issue. Therefore, this paper proposes a load-balancing routing algorithm for dual-mode communication networks, which is achieved in dual-mode communication networks by adding alternate paths and proxy coordinator (PCO) node election mechanism. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves the load-balanced distribution of power consumption information transmission. The proposed scheme reduces the delay and packet loss rate, as well as improving the throughput of dual-mode communication compared to existing routing algorithms. Full article
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16 pages, 606 KiB  
Communication
Controllable Multiple Active Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces Assisted Anti-Jamming Communication
by Li Ni, Yonggang Zhu and Wenlong Guo
Electronics 2023, 12(18), 3933; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12183933 - 18 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 777
Abstract
Traditional anti-jamming techniques such as frequency hopping (FH) and direction-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) are easily targeted by jammers. Inspired by the significant advantages of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), and in order to overcome “double fading”, controllable multiple active RISs are proposed to explore [...] Read more.
Traditional anti-jamming techniques such as frequency hopping (FH) and direction-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) are easily targeted by jammers. Inspired by the significant advantages of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), and in order to overcome “double fading”, controllable multiple active RISs are proposed to explore anti-jamming communication in this paper. To verify the feasibility of active RIS, the anti-jamming performance of active RIS is analyzed through theoretical derivation and simulation and compared with passive RIS. Furthermore, to solve the optimization problem of active RIS, a controllable multi-active RIS assisted anti-jamming algorithm based on BCD is proposed. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that in small-scale deployment scenarios of RIS, the anti-jamming performance of active RIS is better than that of passive RIS, and the complexity and optimization performance of the proposed algorithm are better than those of semidefinite relaxation (SDR) algorithms. Full article
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16 pages, 1152 KiB  
Article
NDN-Based Coded Caching Strategy for Satellite Networks
by Zhiguo Liu, Xiaoyong Jin, Yifan Li and Luxi Zhang
Electronics 2023, 12(18), 3756; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12183756 - 6 Sep 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 813
Abstract
To solve the transmission correlation issue arising from traditional named data networking (NDN) caching during segmenting contents, where users must obtain data blocks related to the requested file blocks to recover the source data, in this paper, we propose an NDN-based coded caching [...] Read more.
To solve the transmission correlation issue arising from traditional named data networking (NDN) caching during segmenting contents, where users must obtain data blocks related to the requested file blocks to recover the source data, in this paper, we propose an NDN-based coded caching strategy for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks, using coding operations to remove the transmission correlation of data. To achieve efficient content distribution, the satellite node’s coded package is strategically placed with the objectives of minimizing the backhaul link load and content acquisition latency. The optimization problem is solved by using a multi-colony ant colony algorithm, enabling fast content retrieval. We designed a cluster cooperative distribution mechanism to simplify the satellite network’s management and reduce the load of satellite links for content distribution when covered by multiple satellite nodes. Finally, we compare the multi-objective coded caching (CCMO) introduced in this paper with the most popular (MP) strategy and the random-based coded caching (CCR) strategy; the average cache hit ratio, backhaul link load, and content acquisition delay are compared and analyzed. The results show that CCMO performs better. Full article
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13 pages, 490 KiB  
Communication
NOMA or OMA in Delay-QoS Limited Satellite Communications: Effective Capacity Analysis
by Xiaojuan Yan, Kang An, Qianfeng Zhang and Bo Du
Electronics 2023, 12(14), 3004; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12143004 - 8 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 721
Abstract
In this paper, we theoretically study the achievable capacity of orthogonal and non-orthogonal multiple access (OMA and NOMA) schemes in supporting downlink satellite communication networks. Considering that various satellite applications have different delay quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, the concept of effective capacity is introduced [...] Read more.
In this paper, we theoretically study the achievable capacity of orthogonal and non-orthogonal multiple access (OMA and NOMA) schemes in supporting downlink satellite communication networks. Considering that various satellite applications have different delay quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, the concept of effective capacity is introduced as a delay-guaranteed capacity metric to represent users’ various delay requirements. Specifically, the analytical expressions of effective capacities for each user achieved with the NOMA and OMA schemes are first studied. Then, approximated effective capacities achieved in some special cases, exact closed-form expressions of users’ achievable effective capacity, and the capacity difference between NOMA and OMA schemes are derived. Simulation results are finally provided to validate the theoretical analysis and show the suitable limitations of the NOMA and OMA schemes, such as the NOMA scheme is more suitable for users with better channel quality when transmit signal-to-noise (SNR) is relatively large, while it is suitable for users with worse link gain when transmit SNR is relatively small. Moreover, the influences of delay requirements and key parameters on user selection strategy and system performance are also shown in the simulations. Full article
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14 pages, 1116 KiB  
Article
A Robust Scheme for RIS-Assisted UAV Secure Communication in IoT
by Pengzhi Qian, Yu Zhang, Xiaojuan Yan, Yong Chen and Yifu Sun
Electronics 2023, 12(11), 2507; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12112507 - 2 Jun 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1202
Abstract
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been extensively studied on the Internet of Things (IoT) systems to improve communication performance. In this paper, we aimed to counter simultaneous jamming and eavesdropping attacks by jointly designing an active beamforming vector at [...] Read more.
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been extensively studied on the Internet of Things (IoT) systems to improve communication performance. In this paper, we aimed to counter simultaneous jamming and eavesdropping attacks by jointly designing an active beamforming vector at the base station (BS) and reflect phase shifts at the RIS. Specifically, considering imperfect angular channel state information (CSI), the sum secrecy rate maximization problem in the worst case could be formulated, which is NP-hard and non-convex. To address this problem, we improved the robust enhanced signal-to-leakage-and-noise ratio (E-SLNR) beamforming to reduce the computational complexity and mitigate the impact of interference, eavesdropping and jamming. Furthermore, a genetic algorithm with a tabu search (GA-TS) method was proposed to efficiently obtain an approximate optimal solution. The simulation results demonstrated that the proposed GA-TS method converged faster with better results than conventional GA, while the proposed robust scheme could achieve higher sum secrecy rates than the zero-forcing (ZF) and SLNR schemes. Full article
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11 pages, 1395 KiB  
Article
Design of Regenerating Code Based on Security Level in Cloud Storage System
by Fan Zhang, Jian Xu and Gangqiang Yang
Electronics 2023, 12(11), 2423; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12112423 - 26 May 2023
Viewed by 979
Abstract
Cloud storage is an indispensable part of cloud computing solutions and the security of its stored data has become a key issue in the research and application of cloud storage systems. To solve this problem, this paper studies the anti-eavesdropping regenerating code technology [...] Read more.
Cloud storage is an indispensable part of cloud computing solutions and the security of its stored data has become a key issue in the research and application of cloud storage systems. To solve this problem, this paper studies the anti-eavesdropping regenerating code technology for cloud storage systems, from the perspective of information theory. As opposed to the existing research ideas on regenerating code theory, that enable the system to obtain strong/weak security, this paper focuses on quantifying the relationship between security and system performance parameters, evaluating the system performance gains that can be obtained by appropriately reducing security, and designing regenerating code schemes with different information security levels to meet the personalized requirements of cloud storage customers. This paper puts forward a generalized matrix transposing method and applies it to the coding construction of fractional repetition codes. The scheme proposed in this paper will provide new ideas and methods for research on secure regenerating code technology in cloud storage systems. Full article
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16 pages, 1072 KiB  
Article
Sensing and Secure NOMA-Assisted mMTC Wireless Networks
by Urvashi Chaudhary, Mohammad Furqan Ali, Samikkannu Rajkumar and Dushantha Nalin K. Jayakody
Electronics 2023, 12(10), 2322; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12102322 - 21 May 2023
Viewed by 1019
Abstract
Throughout this study, a novel network model for massive machine-type communications (mMTC) is proposed using a compressive sensing (CS) algorithm and a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme. Further, physical-layer security (PLS) is applied in this network to provide secure communication. We first assume [...] Read more.
Throughout this study, a novel network model for massive machine-type communications (mMTC) is proposed using a compressive sensing (CS) algorithm and a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme. Further, physical-layer security (PLS) is applied in this network to provide secure communication. We first assume that all the legitimate nodes operate in full-duplex mode; then, an artificial noise (AN) signal is emitted while receiving the signal from the head node to confuse eavesdroppers (Eve). A convex optimization tool is used to detect the active number of nodes in the proposed network using a sparsity-aware maximum a posteriori (S-MAP) detection algorithm. The sensing-aided secrecy sum rate of the proposed network is analyzed and compared with the sum rate of the network without sensing, and the closed-form expression of the secrecy outage probability of the proposed mMTC network is derived. Finally, our numerical results demonstrate the impact of an active sensing algorithm in the proposed mMTC network; improvement in the secrecy outage of the proposed network is achieved through increasing the distance of the Eve node. Full article
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19 pages, 1052 KiB  
Article
Joint Optimization of Trajectory and Discrete Reflection Coefficients for UAV-Aided Backscatter Communication System with NOMA
by Chenyang Du, Jing Guo, Hanxiao Yu, Li Cui and Zesong Fei
Electronics 2023, 12(9), 2029; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12092029 - 27 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1161
Abstract
Backscatter communication is a promising technology for the Internet of Things (IoT) systems with low-energy consumption, in which the data transmission of the backscatter devices relies on reflecting the incident signal. However, limited by the low power characteristic of the reflected signal from [...] Read more.
Backscatter communication is a promising technology for the Internet of Things (IoT) systems with low-energy consumption, in which the data transmission of the backscatter devices relies on reflecting the incident signal. However, limited by the low power characteristic of the reflected signal from backscatter devices, achieving efficient data collection for the widely distributed backscatter devices is a thorny problem. Considering that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have flexible deployment capability, employing UAVs in a backscatter communication network can achieve feasible data collection for backscatter devices. In this paper, we consider a UAV-aided backscatter system and introduce Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to enable the UAV to collect signals from multiple backscatter devices simultaneously. We formulate an optimization problem to maximize the communication throughput of the considered system by jointly designing the backscatter device matching, the trajectory of the UAV, and the reflection coefficients of the backscatter devices, which is a non-convex optimization problem and challenging to solve. Hence, we decouple the original problem into three sub-problems and propose an efficient iterative algorithm based on Block Coordinate Descent (BCD) to solve them. In detail, a game-based matching algorithm is designed to ensure the transmission needs of remote backscatter devices. The UAV trajectory and reflection coefficients of backscatter devices are optimized through the Successive Convex Approximation (SCA) algorithm and relaxation algorithm. By iterative optimization of the sub-problems, the original problem is solved. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can obtain a significant throughput gain compared to benchmark schemes. Full article
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16 pages, 7346 KiB  
Article
Deep-Learning-Aided RF Fingerprinting for NFC Relay Attack Detection
by Yifeng Wang, Junwei Zou and Kai Zhang
Electronics 2023, 12(3), 559; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12030559 - 21 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2834
Abstract
Near field communication (NFC) has been a widely used radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology, credited to its convenience and security features. However, the transmitted signals can be easily eavesdropped or relayed in an open wireless channel. One of the challenges is relay attack, where [...] Read more.
Near field communication (NFC) has been a widely used radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology, credited to its convenience and security features. However, the transmitted signals can be easily eavesdropped or relayed in an open wireless channel. One of the challenges is relay attack, where an attacker simply relays the signal and bypasses encryption or other means in the application layer. Prior works on relay attack countermeasures have focused on distance-bounding protocols or ambient-based solutions. This paper focuses on ISO/IEC 14443-A and proposes an NFC relay detection method based on RF fingerprinting of transmitted wireless signals in the physical layer. To this end, we first designed and implemented two realizations of NFC relay attacks, wired and wireless relays, and built an SDR-based testbed. We collected the normal and relayed signals of four NFC tags, and the answer to request type A (ATQA) segments were selected for RF fingerprinting. The created dataset comprised 66,366 samples, with four tags’ normal and wired relayed signals and the wireless relayed signals. The dataset was then fed into a deep CNN for training. Finally, our experiment results showed that the method effectively distinguished normal and relayed signals with a high accuracy of 99%, confirming that RF fingerprinting can be a promising countermeasure to NFC relay attacks. Full article
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