Preserving Data Secrecy and Integrity for Cloud Storage Using Smart Contracts and Cryptographic Primitives

Cloud computing has emerged as a viable alternative to traditional computing infrastructures,offering various benefits.However,the adoption of cloud storage poses significant risks to data secrecy and integrity.This article presents an effective mechanism to preserve the secrecy and integrity of data stored on the public cloud by leveraging blockchain technology,smart contracts,and cryptographic primitives.The proposed approach utilizes a Solidity-based smart contract as an auditor for maintaining and verifying the integrity of outsourced data.To preserve data secrecy,symmetric encryption systems are employed to encrypt user data before outsourcing it.An extensive performance analysis is conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed mechanism.Additionally,a rigorous assessment is conducted to ensure that the developed smart contract is free from vulnerabilities and to measure its associated running costs.The security analysis of the proposed system confirms that our approach can securely maintain the confidentiality and integrity of cloud storage,even in the presence of malicious entities.The proposed mechanism contributes to enhancing data security in cloud computing environments and can be used as a foundation for developing more secure cloud storage systems.

Secrecy Outage Probability Minimization in Wireless-Powered Communications Using an Improved Biogeography-Based Optimization-Inspired Recurrent Neural Network

This paper focuses on wireless-powered communication systems,which are increasingly relevant in the Internet of Things(IoT)due to their ability to extend the operational lifetime of devices with limited energy.The main contribution of the paper is a novel approach to minimize the secrecy outage probability(SOP)in these systems.Minimizing SOP is crucial for maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of data,especially in situations where the transmission of sensitive data is critical.Our proposed method harnesses the power of an improved biogeography-based optimization(IBBO)to effectively train a recurrent neural network(RNN).The proposed IBBO introduces an innovative migration model.The core advantage of IBBO lies in its adeptness at maintaining equilibrium between exploration and exploitation.This is accomplished by integrating tactics such as advancing towards a random habitat,adopting the crossover operator from genetic algorithms(GA),and utilizing the global best(Gbest)operator from particle swarm optimization(PSO)into the IBBO framework.The IBBO demonstrates its efficacy by enabling the RNN to optimize the system parameters,resulting in significant outage probability reduction.Through comprehensive simulations,we showcase the superiority of the IBBO-RNN over existing approaches,highlighting its capability to achieve remarkable gains in SOP minimization.This paper compares nine methods for predicting outage probability in wireless-powered communications.The IBBO-RNN achieved the highest accuracy rate of 98.92%,showing a significant performance improvement.In contrast,the standard RNN recorded lower accuracy rates of 91.27%.The IBBO-RNN maintains lower SOP values across the entire signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)spectrum tested,suggesting that the method is highly effective at optimizing system parameters for improved secrecy even at lower SNRs.

Average Secrecy Capacity of the Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Assisted Integrated Satellite Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Relay Networks

Integrated satellite unmanned aerial vehicle relay networks(ISUAVRNs)have become a prominent topic in recent years.This paper investigates the average secrecy capacity(ASC)for reconfigurable intelligent surface(RIS)-enabled ISUAVRNs.Especially,an eve is considered to intercept the legitimate information from the considered secrecy system.Besides,we get detailed expressions for the ASC of the regarded secrecy system with the aid of the reconfigurable intelligent.Furthermore,to gain insightful results of the major parameters on the ASC in high signalto-noise ratio regime,the approximate investigations are further gotten,which give an efficient method to value the secrecy analysis.At last,some representative computer results are obtained to prove the theoretical findings.

Leveraging UAV-assisted communications to improve secrecy for URLLC in 6G systems

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs)will be essential to support mission-critical applications of Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication(URLLC)in futuristic Sixth-Generation(6G)networks.However,several security vulnerabilities and attacks have plagued previous generations of communication systems;thus,physical layer security,especially against eavesdroppers,is vital,especially for upcoming 6G networks.In this regard,UAVs have appeared as a winning candidate to mitigate security risks.In this paper,we leverage UAVs to propose two methods.The first method utilizes a UAV as Decode-and-Forward(DF)relay,whereas the second method utilizes a UAV as a jammer to mitigate eavesdropping attacks for URLLC between transmitter and receiver devices.Moreover,we present a low-complexity algorithm that outlines the two aforementioned methods of mitigating interception,i.e.increasing secrecy rate,and we compare them with the benchmark null method in which there is a direct communication link between transmitter and receiver without the UAV DF relay.Additionally,simulation results show the effectiveness of such methods by improving the secrecy rate and its dependency on UAV height,blocklength,decoding error probability and transmitter-receiver separation distance.Lastly,we recommend the best method to enhance the secrecy rate in the presence of an eavesdropper based on our simulations.

Secrecy Efficiency Maximization in Intelligent Reflective Surfaces Assisted UAV Communications

This paper focuses on the secrecy efficiency maximization in intelligent reflecting surface(IRS)assisted unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)communication.With the popularization of UAV technology,more and more communication scenarios need UAV support.We consider using IRS to improve the secrecy efficiency.Specifically,IRS and UAV trajectories work together to counter potential eavesdroppers,while balancing the secrecy rate and energy consumption.The original problem is difficult to solve due to the coupling of optimization variables.We first introduce secrecy efficiency as an auxiliary variable and propose relaxation optimization problem,and then prove the equivalence between relaxation problem and the original problem.Then an iterative algorithm is proposed by applying the block coordinate descent(BCD)method and the inner approximationmethod.The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm converges fast and is superior to the existing schemes.In addition,in order to improve the robustness of the algorithm,we also pay attention to the case of obtaining imperfect channel state information(CSI).

Secrecy Outage Probability for Two-Way Integrated Satellite Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Relay Networks with Hardware Impairments

In this paper,we investigate the secrecy outage performance for the two-way integrated satellite unmanned aerial vehicle relay networks with hardware impairments.Particularly,the closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability is obtained.Moreover,to get more information on the secrecy outage probability in a high signalto-noise regime,the asymptotic analysis along with the secrecy diversity order and secrecy coding gain for the secrecy outage probability are also further obtained,which presents a fast method to evaluate the impact of system parameters and hardware impairments on the considered network.Finally,Monte Carlo simulation results are provided to show the efficiency of the theoretical analysis.

Secrecy Capacity Maximization for a UAV-Assisted MEC System

Unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)communication has attracted wide attentions in the mobile edge computing(MEC)system owing to its high-flexibility and simple operation auxiliary communication mode.Users can offload computing tasks to UAVs,which serves as edge nodes.Meanwhile,UAVs forward the tasks onto a cloud center or base station for processing,thereby shortening the implementation time of tasks.Nevertheless,the offloading links of an UAV-assisted MEC system adopt a radio broadcasting mode.Several eavesdroppers might be present in the environment to eavesdrop the data sent by users and UAVs,thereby causing significant effects on the secrecy performance.An optimized iterative algorithm is proposed in this paper to realize the maximum secrecy capacity of the MEC system and further improve the secrecy performance of an UAV-assisted MEC system and assure secrecy transmit.By doing so,the secrecy transmit problems of the two-staged offloading model of the UAV-assisted MEC system are solved.The maximum secrecy capacity of the system is obtained through joint optimization of the UAV positions,transmit power of the UAV,task offloading ratio,and allocation of offloading users considering the limited time and energy of an UAV.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed iterative algorithm can effectively improve the secrecy capacity of the system.

Secrecy Rate Analysis for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Assisted MIMO Communications with Statistical CSI

In this paper,a reconfigurable intelligent surface(RIS)-assisted MIMO wireless secure communication system is considered,in which a base station(BS)equipped with multiple antennas exploits statistical channel state information to communicate with a legitimate multi-antenna user,in the presence of an eavesdropper,also equipped with multiple antennas.We firstly obtain an analytical expression of the ergodic secrecy rate based on the results of largedimensional random matrix theory.Then,a jointly alternating optimization algorithm with the method of Taylor series expansion and the projected gradient ascent method is proposed to design the transmit covariance matrix at the BS,as well as the diagonal phaseshifting matrix to maximize the ergodic secrecy rate.Simulations are conducted to demonstrate the accuracy of the derived analytical expressions,as well as the superior performance of our proposed algorithm.

A Forward Integrity and Itinerary Secrecy Protocol for Mobile Agents

The security problem of mobile agents is widely being discussed. The problem which protects mobile agents from malicious hosts is difficult to solve, because a host has access to the complete internal state of an agent. Forward integrity in mobile agents guarantees that offers contained in a mobile agent from previously visited host can not be modified by a malicious host. Itinerary secrecy can prevent mobile agent from being passively attack. This paper proposes a new forward integrity and itinerary secrecy protocol for mobile agent. The protocol can also resist collusion truncation attack.

Secrecy-Enhancing Design for Two-Way Energy Harvesting Cooperative Networks with Full-Duplex Relay Jamming

To guarantee secure information transmission within two sources,a full-duplex(FD)relay jamming scheme for two-way energy harvesting(EH)cooperative networks is proposed,in which the relay can achieve simultaneous information reception and jamming transmission.The EH relay node scavenges energy from two source signals,and then,uses the harvested energy for information relaying and jamming transmission by the power splitting(PS)protocol.Considering multiple eavesdroppers,the nonconvex optimization for maximizing the smaller bidirectional secrecy rates is formulated by jointly optimizing the power allocation and PS factor.Furthermore,an iterative algorithm based on successive convex approximation and alternate search method is proposed to solve this non-convexity.Simulation results verify the proposed iterative algorithm and show that the proposed jamming scheme can achieve substantial performance gain than other conventional schemes.

Secrecy Outage Probability Analysis Based on Cognitive Decode-and-Forward Relaying

Wireless communications have to face to several different security issues in practice due to the nature of broadcast.The information theory is well known to provide efficient approaches to address security issues in wireless communications,which attracts much attention in both industry and academia in recent years.In this paper,inspired by information theory,we study the outage probability of the opportunistic relay selection based on cognitive decode-and-forward relaying with the secrecy consideration.Specifically,the closed-form expression of the outage probability is proposed.Moreover,the asymptotic performance evaluation on the basis of the analytical results is investigated.The simulation results show that the relay selection can reduce the outage probability in accordance with our theoretical analysis.

Enhancing secrecy rates in a wiretap channel

Reliable communication imposes an upper limit on the achievable rate,namely the Shannon capacity.Wyner's wiretap coding ensures a security constraint and reliability,but results in a decrease of achievable rate.To mitigate the loss in secrecy rate,we propose a coding scheme in which we use sufficiently old messages as key and prove that multiple messages are secure with respect to all the information possessed by the eavesdropper.We also show that we can achieve security in the strong sense.Next,we study a fading wiretap channel with full channel state information of the eavesdropper's channel and use our coding/decoding scheme to achieve a secrecy capacity close to the Shannon capacity of the main channel(in the ergodic sense).Finally,we study a case where the transmitter does not have instantaneous information of the channel state of the eavesdropper,but only its distribution.

Formal Verification of Secrecy in Group Key Protocols Using Event-B

Group key security protocols play an important role in today’s communication systems. Their verification, however, remains a great challenge because of the dynamic characteristics of group key construction and distribution protocols. Security properties that are well defined in normal two-party protocols have different meanings and different interpretations in group key distribution protocols, specifically, secrecy properties, such as group secrecy, forward secrecy, backward secrecy, and key independence. In this paper, we present a method to verify forward secrecy properties for group-oriented protocols. The method is based on a correct semantical link between group key protocols and event-B models and also uses the refinement process in the B method to model and verify group and forward secrecy. We use an event-B first-order theorem proving system to provide invariant checking for these secrecy properties. We illustrate our approach on the Tree based Group Diffie-Hellman protocol as case study.

Secrecy sum-rate analysis of massive MIMO systems under dual-threat attacks using normalization methods

Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output(MIMO)has been considered as an emerging technology to enhance the spectral and energy efficiency for the upcoming wireless communication systems.This paper derives a closedform approximation for the Ergodic Achievable Secrecy Sum-Rate(EASSR)by considering the joint impact of eavesdroppers and jammers.Two widely used linear precoding techniques,Zero-Forcing(ZF)and Maximum Ratio Transmission(MRT),were used in conjunction with matrix and vector normalization to analyze the secrecy performance.Closed-form expressions are used to explain how the secrecy performance is affected when using the ZF and MRT precoding in the eavesdropping and jamming attack models.We also analyze and compare the performances of different combinations of normalization method and precoding technique in various scenarios.From the analytical expressions and simulation results,we observe that the vector and matrix normalization perform better for the ZF precoding than for the MRT precoding in high Signal-to-Noise Ratio(SNR)scenarios.However,in low SNR,the MRT with matrix normalization outperforms the ZF with vector normalization regardless of the number of users in the system.Further,we observe that the MRT fails to serve more than two users in high SNR scenario.Numerical results obtained from Monte Carlo simulation are used to corroborate the accuracy of the asymptotic secrecy analysis.

Achievable secrecy rate of bit-interleaved coded modulation schemes

We study the impact of various modulation mapping strategies and signal constellation shapes on the se- crecy rates achievable with bit-interleaved coded modulation （BICM） schemes. Transmission over an ergodic Rayleigh fading channel is assumed throughout this work. Various constellations and mapping techniques are considered in this work to maximize the capacity difference between the main channel and the eavesdropper channel, rather than to opti- mize the capacity of both channels. We show that in terms of achievable secrecy rate, Gray and Quasi-Gray mappings only perform Well at low SNR but outperformed by other mapping techniques when SNR increases. The proper design of signal mapping can significantly enhance the achievable secrecy rate in BICM schemes. It is indicated that the key parameter to the secrecy rate of a BICM system is the distance spectrum of Euclidean distances for mappings.

Secrecy Rate Analysis for RIS-Aided Multi-User MISO System over Rician Fading Channel

The reconfigurable intelligent surface(RIS),which is composed of multiple passive reflective components,is now considered as an effective mean to improve security performance in wireless communications,as it can enhance the signal of legitimate users and suppress the power leakage at eavesdroppers by adjusting signal phases.In this paper,we maximize the downlink ergodic secrecy sum rate of a RIS-aided multi-user system over Rician fading channels,where we assume that only imperfect channel state information(CSI)is available at the base station(BS).Firstly,we obtain the deterministic approximate expression for the ergodic secrecy sum rate by resorting to the large-system approximation theory.Then the problem is formulated to maximize the downlink ergodic secrecy sum rate by optimizing the regularization coefficient of regularized zero-forcing(RZF)precoding and the phase-shifting matrix of the RIS.By using the particle swarm optimization(PSO)method,we propose an alternate optimization(AO)algorithm to solve this non-convex problem.Finally,the numerical simulations illustrate the accuracy of our large-system approximate expression as well as the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Security-Enhanced Directional Modulation Based on Two-Dimensional M-WFRFT

Directional modulation(DM)is one of the most promising secure communication techniques.However,when the eavesdropper is co-located with the legitimate receiver,the conventional DM has the disadvantages of weak anti-scanning capability,anti-deciphering capability,and low secrecy rate.In response to these problems,we propose a twodimensional multi-term weighted fractional Fourier transform aided DM scheme,in which the legitimate receiver and the transmitter use different transform terms and transform orders to encrypt and decrypt the confidential information.In order to further lower the probability of being deciphered by an eavesdropper,we use the subblock partition method to convert the one-dimensional modulated signal vector into a twodimensional signal matrix,increasing the confusion of the useful information.Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed DM scheme not only provides stronger anti-deciphering and anti-scanning capabilities but also improves the secrecy rate performance of the system.

Achievable Secrecy Rate Region of Two-Way Communication with Secret Key Feedback

This paper investigates the achievable secrecy rate region of the Gaussian two-way wiretap channel,which describes the simultaneous secure two-way transmission of a confidential message. Through adjusting the time-sharing factor and the rate at which the random secret key is fed back, the allocation and optimization for the secrecy rates of two-way communication are achieved. Under peak and average power constraints, the achievable secrecy rate regions of the two-way communication are derived respectively.

Secrecy outage analysis on underlay cognitive radio using selection combining

Secure data transmission in future high-capacity high-coverage multi-tier hierarchical networks, for which cognitive radio （CR） has emerged as an essential recipe, is of utmost importance. This paper investigates the secrecy outage performance of selection combining （SC） in CR networks （CRNs） over Rayleigh fading channels. In a single-input multiple-output （SIMO） wiretap channel, a secondary user transmits confidential messages to another secondary user, which is equipped with n B （nB ≥1） antennas. Meanwhile, a passive eavesdropper, which is equipped with nE （n E ≥1） antennas, intends to overhear the messages. Both the legal receiver and the eavesdropper adopt SC scheme to process the received multiple signals. The secondary transmitter uses the underlay strategy to guarantee the quality of service of the primary user without spectrum sensing. Compared to the work proposed by Maged Elkashlan et al. in Ref. [ 1 ], we present an alternative method to derive the closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability （SOP） and develop a simplified SOP when the maximal transmit power at the secondary user is sufficiently high. Our results reveal the impact of the primary network on the secondary network with a multi-antenna wiretap channel and simulations are conducted to validate the accuracy of our proposed analytical models.

Secrecy energy efficiency maximization for UAV-enabled multi-hop mobile relay system

To deal with the secrecy issues and energy efficiency issues in the unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) assisted communication systems, an UAV-enabled multi-hop mobile relay system is studied in an urban environment. Multiple rotary-wing UAVs with energy budget considerations are employed as relays to forward confidential information between two ground nodes in the presence of multiple passive eavesdroppers. The system secrecy energy efficiency(SEE), defined by the ratio of minimum achievable secrecy rate(SR) to total propulsion energy consumption(PEC), is maximized via jointly optimizing the trajectory and transmit power of each UAV relay. To solve the formulated non-convex fractional optimization problem subject to mobility, transmit power and information-causality constraints, an effective iterative algorithm is proposed by applying the updated-rate-assisted block coordinate decent method, successive convex approximation(SCA) technique and Dinkelbach method. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed joint trajectory design and power control scheme.