Power-Efficient Secure Transmission Against Full-Duplex Active Eavesdropper: A Game-Theoretic Framework

Abstract

Information security is of paramount importance yet significant challenge for wireless communications. In this paper, we investigate the power-efficient transmissions with security concerns in the presence of a full-duplex (FD) active eavesdropper. With FD capability, the eavesdropper can launch jamming attacks while eavesdropping, which affects the legitimate transmissions, such that the legitimate power allocation becomes more favorable for eavesdropping. However, the jamming attacks require additional power consumption and result in self-interference at the eavesdropper itself. The legitimate user intends for a power-efficient manner to effectively guarantee the secure transmissions to defend against the simultaneous eavesdropping and jamming attacks. We formulate the problem within a Stackelberg game framework, where the eavesdropper takes action first as the leader and the legitimate user acts as the follower. We analyze the security game model for both single-channel and multi-channel cases. Furthermore, by exploring the properties of the game equilibrium, we propose the optimal transmission strategy and jamming strategy for the legitimate transmission and eavesdropping, respectively. Finally, we provide extensive simulation results to corroborate our theoretical analysis and evaluate the security performance.

Keywords

• Physical layer security
• full-duplex
• active eavesdropper
• Stackelberg game
• equilibrium