Eavesdropping Risk Evaluation on Terahertz Wireless Channels in Atmospheric Turbulence

Mei, Yu; Ma, Yanxing; Ma, Jianjun; Moeller, Lothar; Federici, John F.

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3098016

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Similar experiments have been conducted previously at 60 GHz showing a decrease of physical layer security due to the placement of scattering objects [15]. Besides that [16], [17] even showed that atmospheric conditions can impact and impair the physical layer security of a THz communication link. In addition to eavesdropping, recent investigations are also focused on possibilities of jamming attacks [18].…”

supporting

confidence: 81%

Eavesdropping Measurements for Applications in Office Environments at Low THz Frequencies

Doeker

Herold

Eckhardt

et al. 2023

IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Techn.

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Low terahertz (THz) frequencies are promising candidates for future wireless communication systems. Due to high path losses at those frequencies, highly directive antennas can be used to compensate the path losses thus making eavesdropping challenging. However, previous work has shown that eavesdropping is still possible even if antennas with pencil beams are used. In this article, eavesdropping possibilities are evaluated with respect to common objects in office environments-a coffee cup, a thermos, and a laptop-by investigating the scattering properties of these objects. For the coffee cup and the thermos, angle-independent reflection losses are given. The laptop has the lowest reflection losses of approximately 5 dB if it is placed to reflect the signal in a specular way. Furthermore, the results are analyzed in terms of secrecy capacity and blockage, revealing good eavesdropping opportunities when the thermos is used. If the object is placed outside of the line-of-sight path, the blockage drops down to zero. However, especially for the thermos the secrecy capacity is still below 0.8 in this case. For the other objects, a direct eavesdropping where Eve is directly oriented toward Alice results in a lower secrecy capacity in most of the cases.

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supporting

confidence: 81%

Eavesdropping Measurements for Applications in Office Environments at Low THz Frequencies

Doeker

Herold

Eckhardt

et al. 2023

IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Techn.

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“…Moreover, the focus of other studies was on security analysis of mixed FSO-RF systems under Mdouble shadowed Rician fading scenarios with energy harvesting when the eavesdroppers are wiretapping both RF and FSO links [16], [17]. On the other hand, a few studies have shown that THz links are also prone to eavesdropping attacks if the eavesdropper is placed close to the legitimate user [18]. Despite this fact, the studies are limited only to investigating the system performance for mixed THz-FSO relaying systems [19], [20].…”

Section: A Motivation and Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Secrecy Performance of Mixed THz-FSO Relaying System

Singh¹,

Ahmad²,

Huusko³

2023

Preprint

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Terahertz (THz) frequency band and free-space optical (FSO) communication can be proven potential solutions to the spectrum scarcity challenges in the emerging applications in the 6G. In this direction, a mixed THz-FSO relaying system is proposed in this paper. It is assumed that both THz and FSO links encounter fading effects and pointing errors, where the THz link is modeled using α-μ distribution while Málaga (M) distribution is used to characterize the FSO link. Particularly, we conduct the physical layer security (PLS) analysis and derive the secure outage probability into closed-form for two scenarios: 1) THz eavesdropping attack and 2) FSO eavesdropping attack. The effect of THz and FSO links parameters on the secrecy performance are then further investigated in detail. The results show that the security attacks on FSO links are more severe than those on THz links. Interestingly, the improved THz channel conditions adversely affect the security of the proposed mixed THz-FSO system, whereas better FSO channel conditions provide enhanced secrecy.

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“…Unlike conventional radio frequency (RF) broadcasts, THz links rely on the use of highly directional beams generated from high-gain antennas designed to overcome the large free-space path loss 6 , 7 . This has the potential to make THz communication links more secure by restricting the ability of eavesdroppers to intercept narrow beams 8 – 14 . However, prior research has not addressed the security of THz links in the presence of a jammer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jamming a terahertz wireless link

et al. 2022

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As the demand for bandwidth in wireless communication increases, carrier frequencies will reach the terahertz (THz) regime. One of the common preconceived notions is that, at these high frequencies, signals can radiate with high directivity which inherently provides more secure channels. Here, we describe the first study of the vulnerability of these directional links to jamming, in which we identify several features that are distinct from the usual considerations of jamming at low frequencies. We show that the receiver’s use of an envelope detector provides the jammer with the ability to thwart active attempts to adapt to their attack. In addition, a jammer can exploit the broadband nature of typical receivers to implement a beat jamming attack, which allows them to optimize the efficacy of the interference even if their broadcast is detuned from the frequency of the intended link. Our work quantifies the increasing susceptibility of broadband receivers to jamming, revealing previously unidentified vulnerabilities which must be considered in the development of future wireless systems operating above 100 GHz.

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Eavesdropping Risk Evaluation on Terahertz Wireless Channels in Atmospheric Turbulence

Cited by 17 publications

References 38 publications

Eavesdropping Measurements for Applications in Office Environments at Low THz Frequencies

Eavesdropping Measurements for Applications in Office Environments at Low THz Frequencies

On Secrecy Performance of Mixed THz-FSO Relaying System

Jamming a terahertz wireless link

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