Security in Communication Challenges

Chapter 1: Introduction
Wireless communications are, to any extent, the most rapidly growing section of the communications sector. For this reason, it has seized the consideration and responsiveness of the media and the imaginings of the general public (Ijemaru et al., 2018). In the past decade, cellular communications systems have faced exponential growth and development and there exist billions of users all over the globe. Statistics indicate that by the culmination of 2018, there were approximately 5.1 billion individuals across the globe that subscribed to mobile services, and this signified approximately 67 percent of the world’s populace. Furthermore, the statistics indicate that more than 60 percent of the population in the world has accessibility to internet (GSMA, 2019).
In delineation, wireless communication takes into account the transmission of message signals through minimal energy radio frequency waves by utilizing open air, with the media aspect including both a transmitter and a receiver. The message signal is conveyed to the nearby antenna spot and is transported via optic-fiber cable to a wired telephone or via radio signal to a different wireless phone. Notably, the vulnerable and open nature of wireless communications networks causes wireless transmissions to be substantially more susceptible to different malicious attacks by impostors. This varies from identity theft, eavesdropping to interrupt data, violating the rights for privacy, denial-of-service attacks, to incorporation of viruses, Trojan horse and other mischievous codes to interrupt valid transmissions, and jamming attacks (Ijemaru et al., 2018). What is more, imposters and trespassers have the ability to incapacitate or deactivate firewall protection to attain accessibility to private and sensitive data and information that is conveyed between two wireless communication devices, in the event that this sort of information is not properly safeguarded by strong and comprehensive encryption. As a result, this points out the significant necessity to enhance security in wireless communication, in order to deal with cybercriminal actions, bearing in mind that at the present moment, progressively more individuals are utilizing wireless communication networks in the home and workplace settings (Ijemaru et al., 2018).
Chapter 2: Literature Review
The enormous worldwide infrastructure does not have any fundamental security mechanisms that are embedded to safeguard itself. As a result, it is set for incredible sharing on both levels of insignificance and extreme necessity and therefore the need for security in communication network technologies is paramount to preclude incessant threats (Jain, 2013). Communication network security is a conception to safeguard both network and data transmission over wireless network. Imperatively, data security is the key element of secure transmission of data over communication networks that are undependable (Jain, 2013). In the contemporary, security is a challenging aspect of data communications that encompasses numerous areas comprising of safe and secure communication challenges, strong data encryption techniques, as well as trusted third party to sustain the database. Security has developed into a significant issue in communications. The necessity for communication network security is mounting on a day to day basis. The fundamental reasons for such security include conducting business, proper communication and safety in prospectively unsafe environments and also the development and execution of enterprise-wide communication security policies (Jain, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively examine security in communication technologies.
Wireless security encompasses any initiatives taken that preclude unwarranted access or damage to information that is transmitted over wireless networks in addition to making certain that both the privacy and veracity of data are not compromised (Ijemaru et al., 2018). At the present moment, most of the security architecture that are existent have faced a great deal of compromise owing to the actuality that the airwaves are susceptible to prying and meddling from any individual with radio frequency antenna. Consequently, this has made it significantly challenging to attain complete and total security over wireless communication systems (Ijemaru et al., 2018). There are several security susceptibilities and shortcomings linked with wireless communication networks.
Based on research conducted by Laeeq (2011), the survivability of wireless communications is associated to the protection mechanism of wireless communications and toughness or strength against attacks and failure of network components or communication in its own. These issues comprise of the Wireless Sensor Network gateway forming a sole point of interruption for the back-to-back sensor network infrastructure. Secondly, subsequent to the deployment of the communication network, the sensor nodes continue to remain unattended to, which is a fundamental cause of security lapses. The prevailing approaches for location tracking have their own limitations in being able to trace wireless imposters. Another issue is that key threats and challenges of wireless communications are still not taken into consideration with respect to revised specification. Finally, there is also the issue that the deployment of Ad-hoc Wireless Sensor Networks for the purposes of monitoring and checking physical environments continue to be positioned in susceptible zones (Laeeq, 2011).
There are five areas of wireless system security that can be taken into consideration. The first security issue in wireless communication is anonymity. This is the state of not being recognizable or distinguishable within a group of principles. The information regarding a certain individual or entity is sensitive and private and is confined solely to the individual who has the rights and authority to gain accessibility to it. Sustaining anonymity is of great worry within wireless communication system for different reasons. To begin with, the wireless communication system is largely sensitive to interference and taping in comparison to a wired network. In the present setting, an individual user is able to store different information within mobiles that are linked to the user. This results in the user’s data and information being pervasive and largely accessible. It is unclear that whether the storage of the data is safe or unsafe (Ojha and Gupta, 2015). A second area of security in wireless communication is authentication. The fundamental objective in this regard takes into account precluding unauthorized users from gaining accessibility to a system of communication that is protected. According to Morris and Thompson (1979), the process of authentication is essential for the verification of both the identity and authority of an entity. This facilitates the protection of the service provider from any interference that is unauthorized. Authentication is significant for two fundamental reasons including the prevision of a malicious stations from play-acting to be vase stations and thereafter granting permission to the mobile station to select the service of a certain base station in the existed of networks that are collated (Ojha and Gupta, 2015).
The third security area is availability. According to Gu and Hunt (2005), in the occurrence of denial of service (DoS), the availability makes certain of the survivability of network services. In the case of denial of service (DoS), all of the nodes within the communication network can be easily targeted and be under attack and a number of self-seeking nodes end up making some of the network services to become unavailable. A denial of service (DoS) attack can be carried out at any particular layer of the communication network. Fourth, there is the area of integrity. This makes certain that a message being conveyed and transferred will at no point become corrupt. This can be delineated in two different ways. First, there is malicious altering whereby the attacker changes an account number in the course of a bank transaction. Secondly, there is accidental altering, whereby an error in transmission may take place (Chen, Zhang and Zhang, 2008). In the case of malicious altering, it is conceivable for an adversary that has malicious attack objectives on the communication network to replay, remove or also alter a message. Secondly, in the case of accidental altering, as a result of a number of failures, the message ends up being lost or the content contained within the message becomes changed, which could be errors in transmission within the communication (Ojha and Gupta, 2015). Lastly, there is the area of confidentiality. More often than not, there is information that is solely accessible to the individual who owes it. In this regard, confidentiality makes certain that particular data and information is at no point revealed or divulged to entities that lack authorization. It is important for it to be maintained undisclosed from all entities that lack the authority to access them, so as to sustain the confidentiality of a number of classified information (Ojha and Gupta, 2015).
According to Ijemaru et al. (2014), there is eavesdropping to intercept data, which is the action of illegally interrupting and obtaining information communicated over wireless communication channels, which can conceivably give rise of the compromise of the impacted data or information. Basically, taking into consideration that the airwave is not secure, it implies that an attack has the ability to steal the signal over the air from a considerable distance. Meyer and Wetzel (2004) point out that another challenge in security communication is wireless network sniffing. In delineation, a wireless sniffer alludes to either hardware or software that is designed to interrupt and seize data during its transmission over a network and decode such data into a format that is readable and comprehensible for human beings. Wireless sniffers are packet analyzers precisely intended to capture data conveyed over wireless networks. In spite of the fact that wireless packet sniffers are meaningful instruments for sustaining wireless networks, their abilities also make them widespread instruments for malicious attacks. This is because hackers can easily utilize these instruments for stealing data and also infiltrating communication networks. Therefore, very private and sensitive information, for instance login details, passwords as well as banking and credit card information can be easily tracked by hackers utilizing sniffing instruments.
Chapter 3: Methodology
The recommended methodology for resolving communication security challenges in physical layer security. Imperatively, a layered protocol methodology has been taken into consideration in dealing with communication networks. Notably, this is a common method that is employed to facilitate the simplification of networking designs, by categorizing them into different functional layers, and thereafter apportioning protocols to carry out the task for every layer (Bagheri-Karam, 2010). Within the 7-layer Open System Interconnect (OSI) model, the lowest layer, which is also the first layer is the physical layer, also referred to as PHY. Imperatively, this network comprises of four key elements including delineation of hardware specifications, transmission and reception of data, encoding and signaling, and lastly, topology and physical network design.
Transmit Data User Receive Data
Application Layer
Presentation Layer
Session Layer
Transport Layer
Network Layer
Data Link Layer
Physical Layer
Physical Link
Within all systems of communications, the problems regarding privacy, authentication, and confidentiality are dealt with within the upper layers of the protocol. In the present day, numerous outcomes from information theory, cryptography, and signal processing recommend that there is a great deal of security to be attained by accounting for the inadequacies contained in the physical layer whilst carrying out the design of secure systems (Chang, 2019).
For instance, whereas more often than not fading and noise are dealt with as impairments within wireless communications, outcomes from information theories indicate that they can be capitalized on to conceal messages from a prospective eavesdropper or substantiate devices, devoid of necessitating an extra secret key. These sorts of outcomes, if they can be executed in a cheap and cost effective manner devoid of surrendering a great deal of data rate, demand for the designing of security solutions at the physical layer to supplement communications security mechanisms (Chang, 2019).

In order to demonstrate the overall notion of physical layer security, a wireless communication network comprising of three nodes is taken into consideration. Demonstrated in the diagram above, the existent communication between terminal T1 and terminal T2 can be perceived to be eavesdropped by an unsanctioned and illegal terminal, which is terminal T3. In the event that both terminals T2 and T3 are not located together, the signals for the radiofrequency taken note of at the outputs of the main channel and the channel for the eavesdropper are more often than not dissimilar. Natural incongruities are instigated by physical occurrences, and for wireless communications, the most remarkable effects comprise of fading and path-loss. A fitting example is that, in the event that T1 transmits media such as a video stream, the terminal T3 might attain a signal that might be substantially tainted and corrupted as compared to the one transmission that is obtained by terminal T2. It is imperative to note that the tainting and corruption of this transmission can even preclude terminal T3 from comprehending the content that is contained within the media stream (Chang, 2019).
The most prominent impacts of wireless communications comprise of pathloss and fading. To begin with, fading alludes to a self-interference occurrence that emanated from the propagation of signals using several paths. On the other hand, path loss alludes to basically the weakening or offsetting of the amplitude of the signal with distance. In the event that the transmission distance through the main channel is significantly lesser as compared to the transmission distance through the eavesdropper’s channel, the signal that is detected at terminal T2 is significantly compared to the detected signal at terminal T3. Imperatively, the degradedness of the signal can be employed at terminal T1 to preclude terminal T3 from gaining a clear comprehension of the content within the media being conveyed. Cryptographic security solutions executed at application layer entirely disregard these effects and function as though the eavesdropper channel is channel that is free of any errors or mistakes. On the other hand, the fundamental conception of physical-layer security is to clearly take into consideration dissimilarities at the PHY layer to in order to better safeguard the messages interchanged over the main channel (Bagheri-Karam, 2010).
Chapter 4: Conclusion
In spite of the major benefits offered by wireless communications networks, for instance, flexibility, greater productivity, portability, cost-effective installation expenses, roaming proficiencies and numerous more, the security aspect of wireless communication networks has continued to be of massive challenge and worry. In the contemporary setting, wireless communication susceptibilities are on the rise as a result of greater demand levels for greater data rates, the necessity for advanced and progressive services and that of roaming, and the massive disposition of services all over the world. As a consequence, this has generated severe challenging issues in the security of communication wireless systems and the applications in wireless communications settings.
Parenthetically, wireless communication networks and handheld devices are subject to the similar level of susceptibilities and risks with that of conventional wired networks. Nevertheless, in this day and age, the risks and threats linked with wireless communication networks have evolved to a new facet, apparently for the reason that the communication medium, the airwave, of wireless networks is wide open to trespassers, who exploit and misuse that to unveil malevolent attacks for instance denial-of-service attacks, identity theft, abuse of privacy rights, inclusion of viruses or mischievous codes to interrupt and mess up the normal tasks, passive eavesdropping for data interference and active jamming attacks to disturb authentic transmissions. Yet again, impostors also circumvent firewall protection to attain accessibility to private and sensitive data that is communicated between two wireless devices.
In regard to methodology purposed to combat this wireless communication security is the physical layer security. Imperatively, security solutions are dealt with in dissimilar layers. For instance, spread-spectrum modulation methods are utilized at the PHY layer to alleviate jamming of any communication channels, authentication instruments are carried out at the link layer to preclude unsanctioned or unwarranted accessibility, and cryptographic message encryption is carried out at the application layer to safeguard any data and information being conveyed against eavesdropping. For that reason, jamming of communication channels and unsanctioned accessibility, which are susceptibilities at the PHY layer and link layer, correspondingly, are carried out by security solutions at their layers. Eavesdropping, nevertheless, which is also a PHY layer susceptibility is conventionally dealt with by a solution at the application layer.
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