arXiv subjects

J. Harshan

Publications and source records attributed to J. Harshan.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Seeing is Believing: A Federated Learning Based Prototype to Detect Wireless Injection Attacks

Reactive injection attacks are a class of security threats in wireless networks wherein adversaries opportunistically inject spoofing packets in the frequency band of a client thereby forcing the base-station to deploy impersonation-detection methods. Towards circumventing such threats, we implement secret-key based physical-layer signalling methods at the clients which allow the base-stations to deploy machine learning (ML) models on their in-phase and quadrature samples at the baseband for attack detection. Using Adalm Pluto based software defined radios to implement the secret-key based signalling methods, we show that robust ML models can be designed at the base-stations. However, we also point out that, in practice, insufficient availability of training datasets at the base-stations can make these methods ineffective. Thus, we use a federated learning framework in the backhaul network, wherein a group of base-stations that need to protect their clients against reactive injection threats collaborate to refine their ML models by ensuring privacy on their datasets. Using a network of XBee devices to implement the backhaul network, experimental results on our federated learning setup shows significant enhancements in the detection accuracy, thus presenting wireless security as an excellent use-case for federated learning in 6G networks and beyond.

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arXiv2023

Self-Sustainable Key Generation: Strategies and Performance Bounds under DoS Attacks

Denial-of-Service (DoS) threats pose a major challenge to the idea of physical-layer key generation as the underlying wireless channels for key extraction are usually public. Identifying this vulnerability, we study the effect of DoS threats on relay-assisted key generation, and show that a reactive jamming attack on the distribution phase of relay-assisted key generation can forbid the nodes from extracting secret keys. To circumvent this problem, we propose a self-sustainable key generation model, wherein a frequency-hopping based distribution phase is employed to evade the jamming attack even though the participating nodes do not share prior credentials. A salient feature of the idea is to carve out a few bits from the key generation phase and subsequently use them to pick a frequency band at random for the broadcast phase. Interesting resource-allocation problems are formulated on how to extract maximum number of secret bits while also being able to evade the jamming attack with high probability. Tractable low-complexity solutions are also provided to the resource-allocation problems, along with insights on the feasibility of their implementation in practice.

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arXiv2023

On Distribution-Preserving Mitigation Strategies for Communication under Cognitive Adversaries

In wireless security, cognitive adversaries are known to inject jamming energy on the victim's frequency band and monitor the same band for countermeasures thereby trapping the victim. Under the class of cognitive adversaries, we propose a new threat model wherein the adversary, upon executing the jamming attack, measures the long-term statistic of Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLD) between its observations over each of the network frequencies before and after the jamming attack. To mitigate this adversary, we propose a new cooperative strategy wherein the victim takes the assistance for a helper node in the network to reliably communicate its message to the destination. The underlying idea is to appropriately split their energy and time resources such that their messages are reliably communicated without disturbing the statistical distribution of the samples in the network. We present rigorous analyses on the reliability and the covertness metrics at the destination and the adversary, respectively, and then synthesize tractable algorithms to obtain near-optimal division of resources between the victim and the helper. Finally, we show that the obtained near-optimal division of energy facilitates in deceiving the adversary with a KLD estimator.

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arXiv2023

Low-Latency Communication using Delay-Aware Relays Against Reactive Adversaries

This work addresses a reactive jamming attack on the low-latency messages of a victim, wherein the jammer deploys countermeasure detection mechanisms to change its strategy. We highlight that the existing schemes against reactive jammers use relays with instantaneous full-duplex (FD) radios to evade the attack. However, due to the limitation of the radio architecture of the FD helper, instantaneous forwarding may not be possible in practice, thereby leading to increased decoding complexity at the destination and a high detection probability at the adversary. Pointing at this drawback, we propose a delay-aware cooperative framework wherein the victim seeks assistance from a delay-aware FD helper to forward its messages to the destination within the latency constraints. In particular, we first model the processing delay at the helper based on its hardware architecture, and then propose two low-complexity mitigation schemes, wherein the victim and the helper share their uplink frequencies using appropriate energy-splitting factors. For both the schemes, we solve the optimization problems of computing the near-optimal energy-splitting factors that minimize the joint error rates at the destination. Finally, through analytical and simulation results, we show that the proposed schemes facilitate the victim in evading the jamming attack whilst deceiving the reactive adversary.

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arXiv2023

Hybrid-ARQ Based Relaying Strategies for Enhancing Reliability in Delay-Bounded Networks

Inspired by several delay-bounded mission-critical applications, this paper investigates chase-combining-based hybrid automatic repeat request (CC-HARQ) protocols to achieve high reliability in delay-constrained applications. A salient feature of our approach is to use the end-to-end delay constraint for computing the total number of ARQs permitted in the network, and then optimally distributing them across the nodes so as to minimize packet-drop-probability (PDP), which is the end-to-end reliability metric of interest. Since the chase-combining strategy combines the received packets across multiple attempts, we observe that the PDP of the network depends on the coherence-time of the intermediate wireless channels. As a result, we address the question of computing optimal allocation of ARQs for CC-HARQ strategies under both slow-fading and fast-fading scenarios. For both the channel conditions, we derive closed-form expressions for the PDP, and then formulate several optimization problems for minimizing the PDP for a given delay-bound. Using extensive theoretical results on the local minima of the optimization problems, we synthesize low-complexity algorithms to obtain near-optimal ARQ distributions. Besides using extensive simulation results to validate our findings, a detailed end-to-end delay analysis is also presented to show that the proposed CC-HARQ strategies outperform already known Type-1 ARQ based strategies in several scenarios.

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arXiv2022

One-Hop Listening Based ARQs for Low-Latency Communication in Multi-Hop Networks

Inspired by emerging applications in vehicular networks, we address the problem of achieving high-reliability and low-latency communication in multi-hop wireless networks. We propose a new family of Automatic-Repeat-Requests (ARQs) based cooperative strategies wherein high end-to-end reliability is obtained using packet re-transmissions at each hop while the low-latency constraint is met by imposing an upper bound on the total number of packet retransmissions across the network. A hallmark of our strategies is the one-hop listening capability wherein nodes utilize the unused ARQs of their preceding node just by counting the number of failed attempts due to decoding errors. We further extend the idea of one-hop listening to multi-hop listening, wherein a set of consecutive nodes form clusters to utilize the unused ARQs of the preceding nodes, beyond its nearest neighbour, to further improve reliability. Thus, our strategies provide the high-reliability feature with no compromise in the original latency-constraint. For the proposed strategies, we solve non-linear optimization problems on distributing the ARQs across the nodes so as to minimize packet drop probability (PDP) subject to a total number of ARQs in the network. Through extensive theoretical results on PDP and delay profiles, we show that the proposed strategies outperform the best-known strategies in this space.

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arXiv2022

Optimization of ARQ Distribution for HARQ Strategies in Delay-Bounded Networks

Inspired by several delay-bounded mission-critical applications, optimizing the end-to-end reliability of multi-hop networks is an important problem subject to end-to-end delay constraints on the packets. Towards that direction, Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) based strategies have been recently proposed wherein the problem statement is to distribute a certain total number of ARQs (that capture end-to-end delay) across the nodes such that the end-to-end reliability is optimized. Although such strategies provide a fine control to trade end-to-end delay with end-to-end reliability, their performance degrades in slowly-varying channel conditions. Pointing at this drawback, in this work, we propose a Chase Combing Hybrid ARQ (CC-HARQ) based multi-hop network addressing the problem statement of how to distribute a certain total number of ARQs such that the end-to-end reliability is optimized. Towards solving the problem, first we identify that the objective function of the optimization problem is intractable due to the presence of Marcum-Q functions in it. As a result, we propose an approximation on the objective function and then prove a set of necessary and sufficient conditions on the near-optimal ARQ distribution. Subsequently, we propose a low-complexity algorithm to solve the problem for any network size. We show that CC-HARQ based strategies are particularly appealing in slow-fading channels wherein the existing ARQ strategies fail.

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arXiv2022

Constellation Design for Non-Coherent Fast-Forward Relays to Mitigate Full-Duplex Jamming Attacks

With potential applications to short-packet communication, we address communication of low-latency messages in fast-fading channels under the presence of a reactive jammer. Unlike a traditional jammer, we assume a full-duplex (FD) jammer capable of detecting pre-existing countermeasures and subsequently changing the target frequency band. To facilitate reliable communication amidst a strong adversary, we propose non-coherent fast-forward full-duplex relaying scheme wherein the victim uses a helper in its vicinity to fast-forward its messages to the base station, in addition to ensuring that the countermeasures are undetected by the FD adversary. Towards designing the constellations for the proposed scheme, we identify that existing non-coherent constellation for fast-fading channels are not applicable owing to the cooperative nature of the fast-forward scheme. As a result, we formulate an optimization problem of designing the non-coherent constellations at the victim and the helper such that the symbol-error-probability at the base station is minimized. We theoretically analyze the optimization problem and propose several strategies to compute near-optimal constellations based on the helper's data-rate and fast-forwarding abilities. We show that the proposed constellations provide near-optimal error performance and help the victim evade jamming. Finally, we also prove the scheme's efficacy in deceiving the countermeasure detectors at the jammer.

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arXiv2022

Secure and Ultra-Reliable Provenance Recovery in Sparse Networks: Strategies and Performance Bounds

Provenance embedding algorithms are well known for tracking the footprints of information flow in wireless networks. Recently, low-latency provenance embedding algorithms have received traction in vehicular networks owing to strict deadlines on the delivery of packets. While existing low-latency provenance embedding methods focus on reducing the packet delay, they assume a complete graph on the underlying topology due to the mobility of the participating nodes. We identify that the complete graph assumption leads to sub-optimal performance in provenance recovery, especially when the vehicular network is sparse, which is usually observed outside peak-hour traffic conditions. As a result, we propose a two-part approach to design provenance embedding algorithms for sparse vehicular networks. In the first part, we propose secure and practical topology-learning strategies, whereas in the second part, we design provenance embedding algorithms that guarantee ultra-reliability by incorporating the topology knowledge at the destination during the provenance recovery process. Besides the novel idea of using topology knowledge for provenance recovery, a distinguishing feature for achieving ultra-reliability is the use of hash-chains in the packet, which trade communication-overhead of the packet with the complexity-overhead at the destination. We derive tight upper bounds on the performance of our strategies, and show that the derived bounds, when optimized with appropriate constraints, deliver design parameters that outperform existing methods. Finally, we also implement our ideas on OMNeT++ based simulation environment to show that their latency benefits indeed make them suitable for vehicular network applications.

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arXiv2021

Do Not Forget the Past: A Buffer-Aided Framework for Relay Based Key Generation

We address relay-assisted key generation wherein two wireless nodes, that have no direct channel between them, seek the assistance of an intermediate relay to generate secret keys. In a celebrated version of the relay-assisted protocol, as applied by Lai et al., Zhou et al., Wang et al. and Waqas et al., the relay node generates pair-wise keys with the two nodes, and then broadcasts an XOR version of the two keys. Although such protocols are simple and effective, we observe that they face reduction in key rates due to two problems. First, for confidentiality, the relay broadcasts an XOR function of the pair-wise keys thereby pruning the length of the shared key to be the minimum of the key lengths of the pair-wise keys. Secondly, the broadcast phase may also experience outages thereby not being able to share the generated key in every round of the protocol. Identifying these issues, we propose a buffer-aided relaying protocol wherein buffer is used at the relay to store unused secret bits generated in the previous rounds of the protocol so as to provide confidentiality in the subsequent rounds of broadcast. On this buffer-aided protocol, we propose a power-allocation strategy between the phases of key generation and broadcast so as to maximize the throughput and key rate. Rigorous analyses show that buffer-aided relay when implemented along with the proposed power-allocation strategy offer remarkable advantages over existing baselines.

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arXiv2021

Path-Aware OMP Algorithms for Provenance Recovery in Wireless Networks

Low-latency provenance embedding methods have received traction in vehicular networks for their ability to track the footprint of information flow. One such known method is based on Bloom filters wherein the nodes that forward the packets appropriately choose a certain number of hash functions to embed their signatures in a shared space in the packet. Although Bloom filter methods can achieve the required accuracy level in provenance recovery, they are known to incur higher processing delay since higher number of hash functions are needed to meet the accuracy level. Motivated by this behaviour, we identify a regime of delay-constraints within which new provenance embedding methods must be proposed as Bloom filter methods are no longer applicable. To fill this research gap, we present network-coded edge embedding (NCEE) protocols that facilitate low-latency routing of packets in vehicular network applications. First, we show that the problem of designing provenance recovery methods for the NCEE protocol is equivalent to the celebrated problem of compressed sensing, however, with additional constraints of path formation on the solution. Subsequently, we present a family of path-aware orthogonal matching pursuit algorithms that jointly incorporates the sparsity and path constraints. Through extensive simulation results, we show that our algorithms enjoy low-complexity implementation, and also improve the path recovery performance when compared to path-agnostic counterparts.

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arXiv2021

XOR-Based Codes for Private Information Retrieval with Private Side Information

We consider the problem of Private Information Retrieval with Private Side Information (PIR-PSI), wherein a user wants to retrieve a file from replication based non-colluding databases by using the prior knowledge of a subset of the files stored on the databases. The PIR-PSI framework ensures that the privacy of the demand and the side information are jointly preserved, thereby finding potential applications when multiple files have to be downloaded spread across different time-instants. Although the capacity of the PIR-PSI setting is known, we observe that the underlying capacity achieving code construction uses Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) codes thereby contributing to high computational complexity when retrieving the demand. Pointing at this drawback of MDS-based PIR-PSI codes, we propose XOR-based PIR-PSI codes for a simple yet non-trivial setting of two non-colluding databases and two side information files at the user. While our codes offer substantial reduction in complexity when compared to MDS based codes, the code-rate marginally falls short of the capacity of the PIR-PSI setting. Nevertheless, we show that our code-rate is strictly higher than that of XOR-based codes for PIR with no side information, thereby implying that our codes can be useful when downloading multiple files in a sequential manner, instead of applying XOR-based PIR codes on each file.

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arXiv2021

Non-Coherent Fast-Forward Relays for Full-Duplex Jamming Attack

This work addresses a strategy to mitigate jamming attack on low-latency communication by a Full-Duplex (FD) adversary in fast-fading channel conditions. The threat model is such that the FD adversary can jam a frequency band and measure the jammed band's power level. We first point out that due to the presence of this FD adversary, Frequency Hopping (FH) fails. We then propose a fast-forward cooperative relaying scheme, wherein the victim node hops to the frequency band of a nearby FD helper node that fast-forwards the victim's symbol along with its symbol. At the same time, the victim and the helper cooperatively pour some fraction of their power on the jammed band to engage the adversary. Due to fast-fading channel conditions, the victim and the helper use amplitude based non-coherent signalling referred to as Non-Coherent Fast-Forward Full-Duplex (NC-F2FD) relaying. To minimize the error-rate of this strategy, we jointly design the constellations at the helper node and the victim node by formulating an optimization problem. Using non-trivial results, we first analyse the objective function and then, based on the analytical results, propose a low-complexity algorithm to synthesize the fast-forwarded constellations. Through simulations, we show that the error performance of the victim improves after employing our countermeasure.

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arXiv2021

Minimal Overhead ARQ Sharing Strategies for URLLC in Multi-Hop Networks

The problem of achieving ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) in multi-terminal networks has gained traction in the recent past owing to new wireless applications in vehicular networks. In the context of multi-hop networks, which is a classic example for multi-party communication, recent studies have shown that automatic-repeat-request (ARQ) based decode-and-forward (DF) strategies are suitable for URLLC since the idea of distributing a given number of ARQs across the nodes provides fine control on the features of reliability and latency. Inspired by these developments, in this work, we propose a cooperative ARQ sharing strategy for URLLC in multi-hop networks. At the heart of the proposed scheme lies the idea that every node is given the knowledge of the number of ARQs allotted to its preceding node in addition to the ARQs allotted to itself. As a result, each node only needs to count the number of unsuccessful attempts of its preceding node, and then borrow the unused ARQs, thereby improving the reliability feature with no compromise in the latency constraint. Using packet-drop-probability (PDP) as the reliability metric for the proposed cooperative strategy, we formulate an optimization problem of minimizing the PDP subject to a sum constraint on the total number of ARQs allotted across all the nodes. Supported by theoretical analysis on the behavior of PDP, we present low-complexity algorithms to compute near-optimal ARQ distributions for our strategy, and show that our strategy outperforms the existing non-cooperative strategies.

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arXiv2021

On Opportunistic Selection of Common Randomness and LLR generation for Algebraic Group Secret-Key Generation

It is well known that physical-layer key generation methods enable wireless devices to harvest symmetric keys by accessing the randomness offered by the wireless channels. Although two-user key generation is well understood, group secret-key (GSK) generation, wherein more than two nodes in a network generate secret-keys, still poses open problems. Recently, Manish Rao et al., have proposed the Algebraic Symmetrically Quantized GSK (A-SQGSK) protocol for a network of three nodes wherein the nodes share quantized versions of the channel realizations over algebraic rings, and then harvest a GSK. Although A-SQGSK protocol guarantees confidentiality of common randomness to an eavesdropper, we observe that the key-rate of the protocol is poor since only one channel in the network is used to harvest GSK. Identifying this limitation, in this paper, we propose an opportunistic selection method wherein more than one wireless channel is used to harvest GSKs without compromising the confidentiality feature, thereby resulting in remarkable improvements in the key-rate. Furthermore, we also propose a log-likelihood ratio (LLR) generation method for the common randomness observed at various nodes, so that the soft-values are applied to execute LDPC codes based reconciliation to reduce the bit mismatches among the nodes.

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arXiv2020

Fast-Forward Relaying Scheme to Mitigate Jamming Attacks by Full-Duplex Radios

In this work, we address reliable communication of low-latency packets in the presence of a full-duplex adversary that is capable of executing a jamming attack while also being able to measure the power levels on various frequency bands. Due to the presence of a strong adversary, first, we point out that traditional frequency-hopping does not help since unused frequency bands may not be available, and moreover, the victim's transition between the frequency bands would be detected by the full-duplex adversary. Identifying these challenges, we propose a new cooperative mitigation strategy, referred to as the Semi-Coherent Fast-Forward Full-Duplex (SC-FFFD) relaying technique, wherein the victim node, upon switching to a new frequency band, seeks the assistance of its incumbent user, which is also a full-duplex radio, to instantaneously forward its messages to the destination using a portion of their powers. Meanwhile, the two nodes cooperatively use their residual powers on the jammed frequency band so as to engage the adversary to continue executing the jamming attack on the same band. Using on-off keying (OOK) and phase-shift-keying (PSK) as the modulation schemes at the victim and the helper node, respectively, we derive upper bounds on the probability of error of jointly decoding the information symbols of the two nodes, and subsequently derive analytical solutions to arrive at the power-splitting factor between the two frequency bands to minimize the error of both the nodes. We also present extensive simulation results for various signal-to-noise-ratio values and PSK constellations to showcase the efficacy of the proposed approach.

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arXiv2020

Group Secret-Key Generation using Algebraic Rings in Wireless Networks

It is well known that physical-layer Group Secret-Key (GSK) generation techniques allow multiple nodes of a wireless network to synthesize a common secret-key, which can be subsequently used to keep their group messages confidential. As one of its salient features, the wireless nodes involved in physical-layer GSK generation extract randomness from a subset of their wireless channels, referred as the common source of randomness (CSR). Unlike two-user key generation, in GSK generation, some nodes must act as facilitators by broadcasting quantized versions of the linear combinations of the channel realizations, so as to assist all the nodes to observe a CSR. However, we note that broadcasting linear combination of channel realizations incurs non-zero leakage of the CSR to an eavesdropper, and moreover, quantizing the linear combination also reduces the overall key-rate. Identifying these issues, we propose a practical GSK generation protocol, referred to as Algebraic Symmetrically Quantized GSK (A-SQGSK) protocol, in a network of three nodes, wherein due to quantization of symbols at the facilitator, the other two nodes also quantize their channel realizations, and use them appropriately over algebraic rings to generate the keys. First, we prove that the A-SQGSK protocol incurs zero leakage to an eavesdropper. Subsequently, on the CSR provided by the A-SQGSK protocol, we propose a consensus algorithm among the three nodes, called the Entropy-Maximization Error-Minimization (EM-EM) algorithm, which maximizes the entropy of the secret-key subject to an upper-bound on the mismatch-rate. We use extensive analysis and simulation results to lay out guidelines to jointly choose the parameters of the A-SQGSK protocol and the EM-EM algorithm.

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arXiv2019

Achievable Rates of Attack Detection Strategies in Echo-Assisted Communication

We consider an echo-assisted communication model wherein block-coded messages, when transmitted across several frames, reach the destination as multiple noisy copies. We address adversarial attacks on such models wherein a subset of the noisy copies are vulnerable to manipulation by an adversary. Particularly, we study a non-persistent attack model with the adversary attacking 50% of the frames on the vulnerable copies in an i.i.d. fashion. We show that this adversarial model drives the destination to detect the attack locally within every frame, thereby resulting in degraded performance due to false-positives and miss-detection. Our main objective is to characterize the mutual information of this adversarial echo-assisted channel by incorporating the performance of attack-detection strategies. With the use of an imperfect detector, we show that the compound channel comprising the adversarial echo-assisted channel and the attack detector exhibits memory-property, and as a result, obtaining closed-form expressions on mutual information is intractable. To circumvent this problem, we present a new framework to approximate the mutual information by deriving sufficient conditions on the channel parameters and also the performance of the attack detectors. Finally, we propose two attack-detectors, which are inspired by traditional as well as neural-network ideas, and show that the mutual information offered by these detectors is close to that of the Genie detector for short frame-lengths.

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