Soderi, Mucchi, Hämäläinen, Piva, and Iinatti
120
not known by others), which are located at the upper layers of a wireless network.
Encryption does not protect from the undesired demodulation of the information by
eavesdroppers, but only from the interpretation of the data as meaningful words. The
cryptographic protocols base their security on the fact that, statistically, the amount of
time for performing a decrypting analysis is enormous. The time to break a codeword
is related to the computational power of the attacker, that is, cryptography intrinsically
assumes that the eavesdropper has a limited amount of computational capability. Recent
efforts of academia and industries to power up the amount of operations per second of
the digital processors make this assumption weaker and weaker. Physical layer security
does not make any assumption on the computational power of the attackers. Moreover,
the standard practice of adding authentication and encryption to the existing protocols
at the various communication layers has led to inefficient aggregations/mixtures of
security mechanisms. Since data security is so critically important, it is reasonable to
argue that security measures should be implemented at all layers where this can be done
in a cost‐effective manner. This leads us to point out our attention to the first layer: the
physical one.
6.1.1 Physical Layer Security in 5G Networks
Working on the next generation of wireless communications imposed the development
of the security engineering as a multidisciplinary field. Nowadays, skills required for
security range from cryptography and computer science to hardware and embedded
systems [15]. Typically, security is implemented through cryptography at upper layers
in the open system interconnection (OSI) model. In the past few years, several
techniques based on signal processing have been utilized to secure communications at
a physical layer and those are promising methods in the applications where standalone
security solution is needed [21,23].
In this chapter, the authors focus their attention to the fifth generation (5G)
networks’ security. 5G is expected to enable the hyper‐connected society, supporting
the growth and the development in many sectors. These improvements leverage the
deployment of new products also in critical infrastructure, such as railway and energy,
in which a high degree of availability and dependability is required. On the other hand,
this trend leads to an addtional exposure of the future mobile communications to
cyber‐attacks that can undermine the system availability [28]. Security services
included in wireless communications are authentication, confidentiality, integrity and
availability [15]. The new security idea discussed here addresses countermeasures
against the confidentiality attacks.
5G network shall serve as key enabler for future applications that use wireless technologies. Wireless communications beyond 2020 becomes pervasive, introducing
the Internet of everything, in which many small devices interact with each other and
with users. 5G systems will encompass different radio providing ultra‐high capacity,
energy efficiency and new spectrum management solutions [24–26]. This evolution
imposes the development of new security engineering methodologies and the appropriate mitigations, because these systems will have different wireless interfaces and
their operating scenarios will include an extensive utilization of wireless links. Due
to its nature, wireless communications might be vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks
and this chapter propose the utilization of physical layer security techniques to
5G network.
120
not known by others), which are located at the upper layers of a wireless network.
Encryption does not protect from the undesired demodulation of the information by
eavesdroppers, but only from the interpretation of the data as meaningful words. The
cryptographic protocols base their security on the fact that, statistically, the amount of
time for performing a decrypting analysis is enormous. The time to break a codeword
is related to the computational power of the attacker, that is, cryptography intrinsically
assumes that the eavesdropper has a limited amount of computational capability. Recent
efforts of academia and industries to power up the amount of operations per second of
the digital processors make this assumption weaker and weaker. Physical layer security
does not make any assumption on the computational power of the attackers. Moreover,
the standard practice of adding authentication and encryption to the existing protocols
at the various communication layers has led to inefficient aggregations/mixtures of
security mechanisms. Since data security is so critically important, it is reasonable to
argue that security measures should be implemented at all layers where this can be done
in a cost‐effective manner. This leads us to point out our attention to the first layer: the
physical one.
6.1.1 Physical Layer Security in 5G Networks
Working on the next generation of wireless communications imposed the development
of the security engineering as a multidisciplinary field. Nowadays, skills required for
security range from cryptography and computer science to hardware and embedded
systems [15]. Typically, security is implemented through cryptography at upper layers
in the open system interconnection (OSI) model. In the past few years, several
techniques based on signal processing have been utilized to secure communications at
a physical layer and those are promising methods in the applications where standalone
security solution is needed [21,23].
In this chapter, the authors focus their attention to the fifth generation (5G)
networks’ security. 5G is expected to enable the hyper‐connected society, supporting
the growth and the development in many sectors. These improvements leverage the
deployment of new products also in critical infrastructure, such as railway and energy,
in which a high degree of availability and dependability is required. On the other hand,
this trend leads to an addtional exposure of the future mobile communications to
cyber‐attacks that can undermine the system availability [28]. Security services
included in wireless communications are authentication, confidentiality, integrity and
availability [15]. The new security idea discussed here addresses countermeasures
against the confidentiality attacks.
5G network shall serve as key enabler for future applications that use wireless technologies. Wireless communications beyond 2020 becomes pervasive, introducing
the Internet of everything, in which many small devices interact with each other and
with users. 5G systems will encompass different radio providing ultra‐high capacity,
energy efficiency and new spectrum management solutions [24–26]. This evolution
imposes the development of new security engineering methodologies and the appropriate mitigations, because these systems will have different wireless interfaces and
their operating scenarios will include an extensive utilization of wireless links. Due
to its nature, wireless communications might be vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks
and this chapter propose the utilization of physical layer security techniques to
5G network.