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Growing computation requirements in emerging intelligently connected vehicle (ICV) networks has posed a big challenge for vehicles to process computation-intensive tasks on-board, and thus computation partition and offloading plays a critical role. Owing to broadcast nature of wireless channels, confidential messages without proper security protection in ICVs may be easily exposed to malicious users. In this paper, a mobile crowdsourcing (MCS) based mobile crowd computing framework for ICV networks is proposed, where multiple vehicles act as workers to provide computing services for end user (EU). In particular, artificial noise (AN) assisted physical (PHY) layer security approaches are used to enhance the security in offloading links. Ergodic secrecy rates in different offloading phases in time-varying channels are derived. In addition, an incentive-driven mechanism is introduced to encourage workers to share their idle computing resources, and an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the overall price paid for computing tasks, subject to energy consumption and delay constraints. Finally, Monte Carlo simulations verify the analysis on the ergodic secrecy rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 5G mobile communication systems having been commercially rolled out, research discussions on next generation mobile systems, that is, 6G, have started. On the other hand, vehicular technologies are also evolving rapidly, from connected vehicles called V2X (vehicle to everything) to autonomous vehicles to the combination of the two, that is, the networks of connected autonomous vehicles (CAV). How fast the evolution of these two areas will go hand-in-hand is of great importance, which is the focus of this article. After a brief overview of the technological evolution of V2X to CAV and 6G key technologies, this article explores two complementary research directions, namely, 6G for CAVs versus CAVs for 6G. The former investigates how various 6G key enablers, such as THz, cell free communication and artificial intelligence (AI), can be utilized to provide CAV mission-critical services. The latter discusses how CAVs can facilitate effective deployment and operation of 6G systems. This article attempts to investigate the interactions between the two technologies to spark more research efforts in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) underlay cellular communication plays an important role in the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond communications and its security issues attract a lot of attention. Physical layer security, which explores channel characteristics to protect wireless communications, is very attractive due to its low latency. This paper focuses on secrecy capacity maximization in V2V underlay cellular communications, where the secrecy capacity of vehicular user equipments (VUEs) is optimized first, followed by sum proportional fairness function optimization for both VUEs and cellular user equipments (CUEs). The optimization problems can be solved in two sub-problems, e.g., power and subcarrier allocation problems. The power allocation can be done with the first strategy using a one-dimensional searching algorithm, whereas a genetic algorithm (GA) is used to solve the second optimization problem. In addition, as VUEs share uplink resources with CUEs, the co-channel interference exists and the subcarrier allocation sub-problem is a 3D search problem, which is solved by a two-step iterative Hungarian algorithm (IHA). Finally, simulations are performed to validate the performance of the proposed schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview on PHY layer security assisted ICV networks. Beginning with a discussion from a general perspective of the ICV network architecture, this work summarizes the major security threats faced by ICV networks. To achieve confidential data transmission with a low latency and a high data rate, several physical layer security schemes are surveyed in this article, which include RRM, cooperative jamming, multi-antenna technologies, and PHY-layer key generation. In addition, the performances of the aforementioned schemes are compared in terms of different aspects, followed by a discussion on some major challenges that need to be tackled in the implementation of ICV networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A device-to-device (D2D) communication link is vulnerable because it is relatively easy to be compromised by adversaries due to the fact that D2D terminals are power limited nodes. This article proposes a covert communication scheme that allows D2D communication links to transmit covert signals (e.g., privacy sensitive data) to ensure a low probability of detection. We allocate transmit powers of cellular and D2D noncovert signals following a fading D2D channel to add the uncertainty in adversary's background noises. With the help of base station, cooperative power domain nonorthogonal multiple access and successive interference cancellation are used to decode covert signal. Depending on whether a D2D transmitter has the knowledge of adversary's detection threshold, we derive minimum error probability to measure the covertness performance. Furthermore, we evaluate covert throughput, which is defined as a maximum average transmission rate of covert signal, subject to a given covertness performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased intelligence and automation in smart grid results in many heterogeneous applications benefiting from the Internet of Things, such as demand response, energy delivery efficiency/reliability, and fault recovery. However, vulnerabilities in smart grid arise due to public communication infrastructure and Internet-based protocols. To deal with security threats, energy big data should be thoughtfully stored and processed to extract critical information, and security and blackout warnings should be given in an early stage. This work gives a comprehensive tutorial and survey to highlight research challenges on the aforementioned issues in the Internet-of-Things-based smart grid. We demonstrate that a stealthy and blind energy big data attack can be launched using a replay scheme. Also, we elucidate an intuitive geometric viewpoint for this type of attack. The proposed attack can bypass bad data detection successfully using either DC or AC state estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless information and power transfer (WIPT) enables more sustainable and resilient communications due to the fact that it avoids frequent battery charging and replacement. However, it also suffers from possible information interception due to the open nature of wireless channels. Compared to traditional secure communications, secrecy wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) has several distinct characteristic features. Wireless power transfer may increase vulnerability to eavesdropping, since a power receiver as a potential eavesdropper usually has a shorter access distance than an information receiver. On the other hand, wireless power transfer can be exploited to enhance wireless security. This article reviews the security issues in various SWIPT scenarios, with an emphasis on revealing the challenges and opportunities for implementing SWIPT. Furthermore, we provide a survey on a variety of physical layer security techniques to improve secrecy performance. In particular, we propose to use massive MIMO techniques to enhance power transfer efficiency and secure information transmission simultaneously. Finally, we discuss several potential research directions to further enhance the security in SWIPT systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Covert channels are communication channels to transmit information utilizing existing system resources without being detected by network security elements, such as firewalls. Thus, they can be utilized to leak confidential governmental, military, and corporate information. Malicious users, like terrorists, can use covert channels to exchange information without being detected by cyber-intelligence services. Therefore, covert channels can be a grave security concern, and it is important to detect, eliminate, and disrupt covert communications. Active network wardens can attempt to eliminate such channels by traffic modification, but such an implementation will also hamper innocuous traffic, which is not always acceptable. Owing to a large number of covert channel algorithms, it is not possible to deal with them on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, it necessitates a unified system model that can represent them. In this paper, we present an event-based model to represent timing covert channels. Based on our model, we calculate the capacity of various covert channels and evaluate their essential features, such as the impact of network jitter noise and packet losses. We also used simulations to obtain these parameters to verify its accuracy and applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider a multi-cell MISO downlink, where a multi-antenna base station (BS) sends messages to its intended user, while a passive eavesdropper tries to intercept the information in each cell. Physical layer security is employed in order to guarantee information security. Due to incomplete channel state information (CSI) at BSs, residue inter-cell interference exists even with coordinated beamforming, which exerts a great impact on the secrecy performance. In this paper, we conduct a unified performance analysis for physical layer security with incomplete CSI, and derives closed-form expressions of ergodic secrecy rate, secrecy outage probability, and interception probability, considering CSI estimation accuracy, transmit signal to noise ratio (SNR), and channel condition. We reveal some insights on the secrecy performance through asymptotic analysis. Furthermore, based on the derived theoretical results, we propose a CSI exchange amount allocation scheme. Finally, the simulations validate our theoretical claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) integrate the computation with physical processes. Embedded computers and networks monitor and control the physical processes, usually with feedback loops where physical processes affect computations and vice versa. CPS was identified as one of the eight research priority areas in the August 2007 report of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, as CPS will be the core component of many critical infrastructures and industrial control systems in the near future. However, a variety of random failures and cyber attacks exist in CPS, which greatly restrict their growth. Fortunately, an intrusion detection mechanism could take effect for protecting CPS. When a misbehavior is found by the intrusion detector, the appropriate action can be taken immediately so that any harm to the system will be minimized. As CPSs are yet to be defined universally, the application of the instruction detection mechanism remain open presently. As a result, the effort will be made to discuss how to appropriately apply the intrusion detection mechanism to CPS in this paper. By examining the unique properties of CPS, it intends to define the specific requirements first. Then, the design outline of the intrusion detection mechanism in CPS is introduced in terms of the layers of system and specific detection techniques. Finally, some significant research problems are identified for enlightening the subsequent studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of tiny sensor nodes that communicate with each other over wireless channels, often in a hostile environment where nodes can be captured and compromised. Consequently, an adversary may launch a clone attack by replicating the captured nodes to enlarge the compromised areas employing clones. Thus, it is critical to detect clone nodes promptly for minimizing their damage to WSNs. Recently, various clone detection schemes were proposed for WSNs, considering different types of network configurations, such as device types and deployment strategies. In order to choose an effective clone detection scheme for a given sensor network, the selection criteria play an important role. In this paper, we first investigate the selection criteria of clone detection schemes with regard to device types, detection methodologies, deployment strategies, and detection ranges. We then classify the existing schemes according to the proposed criteria. Simulation experiments are conducted to compare their performances. It is concluded that it is beneficial to utilize the grid deployment knowledge for static sensor networks; the scheme using the grid deployment knowledge can save energy by up to 94.44% in comparable performance (specifically in terms of clone detection ratio and the completion time), as compared to others. On the other hand, for mobile sensor networks, no existing approach works efficiently in reducing detection error rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the technological advancement in body area sensor networks (BASNs), low cost high quality electrocardiographic (ECG) diagnosis systems have become important equipment for healthcare service providers. However, energy consumption and data security with ECG systems in BASNs are still two major challenges to tackle. In this study, we investigate the properties of compressed ECG data for energy saving as an effort to devise a selective encryption mechanism and a two-rate unequal error protection (UEP) scheme. The proposed selective encryption mechanism provides a simple and yet effective security solution for an ECG sensor-based communication platform, where only one percent of data is encrypted without compromising ECG data security. This part of the encrypted data is essential to ECG data quality due to its unequally important contribution to distortion reduction. The two-rate UEP scheme achieves a significant additional energy saving due to its unequal investment of communication energy to the outcomes of the selective encryption, and thus, it maintains a high ECG data transmission quality. Our results show the improvements in communication energy saving of about 40%, and demonstrate a higher transmission quality and security measured in terms of wavelet-based weighted percent root-mean-squared difference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The blood circulation system in a human body provides a unique and natural trust zone for secure data communications in wireless healthcare systems such as body area networks. Unfortunately, biometric signal authentication using physiological attributes in wireless healthcare has not been extensively studied. In this paper, we propose a data authentication approach utilizing electrocardiography (ECG) signal patterns for reducing key exchange overhead. The major contribution of this research is to apply stochastic pattern recognition techniques in wireless healthcare. In the proposed approach, the inter-pulse interval (IPI) signal pattern at transmitter side is summarized as a biometric authentication key using Gaussian mixture model (GMM). At the receiver side, a light-weight signature verification scheme is adopted that uses IPI signals gathered locally at the receiver. The proposed authentication scheme has the advantage of high sample misalignment tolerance. In our earlier work, we had demonstrated the concept of stochastic authentication for ECG signal, but the signature verification process and GMM authentication performance under time synchronization and various sample points were not discussed. Here, we present a new set of analytical and experimental results to demonstrate that the proposed stochastic authentication approach achieves a low half total error rate in ECG signals verification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Security is critical for sensor networks used in military, homeland security and other hostile environments. Previous research on sensor network security mainly considers homogeneous sensor networks. Research has shown that homogeneous ad hoc networks have poor performance and scalability. Furthermore, many security schemes designed for homogeneous sensor networks suffer from high communication overhead, computation overhead, and/or high storage requirement. Recently deployed sensor network systems are increasingly following heterogeneous designs. Key management is an essential cryptographic primitive to provide other security operations. In this paper, we present an effective key management scheme that takes advantage of the powerful high-end sensors in heterogeneous sensor networks. The performance evaluation and security analysis show that the key management scheme provides better security with low complexity and significant reduction on storage requirement, compared with existing key management schemes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The 13 articles in this special section focus on security and privacy in wireless Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is a paradigm that involves networked physical objects with embedded technologies to collect, communicate, sense, and interact with the external environment through wireless or wired connections. With rapid advancements in IoT technology, the number of IoT devices is expected to surpass 50 billion by 2020, which has also drawn the attention of attackers who seek to exploit the merits of this new technology for their own benefits. There are many potential security and privacy threats to IoT, such as attacks against IoT systems and unauthorized access to private information of end users. As IoT starts to penetrate virtually all sectors of society, such as retail, transportation, healthcare, energy supply, and smart cities, security breaches may be catastrophic to the actual users and the physical world. To tackle the security challenges in the design of future wireless IoT systems, we have organized this Special Issue focusing on the security, privacy, and performance of future wireless IoT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]