Providing Physical Layer Security for Mission Critical Machine Type Communication

TL;DR

This paper explores a physical layer security approach for Mission Critical Machine Type Communication systems, focusing on maintaining message integrity and authenticity against cyber attacks through channel variation tracking, with a proof-of-concept demonstration.

Contribution

It introduces a novel PHYSEC method based on channel variation tracking specifically designed for MC-MTC systems, addressing security challenges in wireless industrial communications.

Findings

The proposed method effectively detects active attacks.

Channel variation tracking enhances message authenticity.

Proof-of-concept validates the approach's feasibility.

Abstract

The design of wireless systems for Mission Critical Machine Type Communication (MC-MTC) is currently a hot research topic. Wireless systems are considered to provide numerous advantages over wired systems in industrial applications for example. However, due to the broadcast nature of the wireless channel, such systems are prone to a wide range of cyber attacks. These range from passive eavesdropping attacks to active attacks like data manipulation or masquerade attacks. Therefore it is necessary to provide reliable and efficient security mechanisms. One of the most important security issue in such a system is to ensure integrity as well as authenticity of exchanged messages over the air between communicating devices in order to prohibit active attacks. In the present work, an approach on how to achieve this goal in MC-MTC systems based on Physical Layer Security (PHYSEC), especially a new method based on keeping track of channel variations, will be presented and a proof-of-concept evaluation is given.