Towards Context Aware 6G Security: The Role of Physical Layer Security

Speaker Bios and Abstracts

• Bio

  Arsenia (Ersi) Chorti holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK in 2005. She is currently a Full Professor at France’s prominent graduate school, École Nationale Supérieure de Électronique et de ses Applications (ENSEA), where she serves as the Head of the Information, Communications, and Imaging (ICI) Group of the ETIS, UMR 8051, University Paris Seine, University Cergy-Pontoise, CNRS, France. Beside her position at ENSEA, she is Visiting Scholar at Princeton University, NJ, USA and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Essex, UK.

  Prior to her Ph.D. from Imperial College London, she obtained an M.Eng. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece, and a D.E.A. degree in Electronics from the University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.

  Before joining ENSEA, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, UK, Technical University of Crete, Greece, and University College London, UK; Senior Lecturer in Communications at Middlesex University, UK; Marie Curie Researcher at Princeton University, NJ, USA and the Institute of Computer Science-FORTH, Greece; and Lecturer at the University of Essex, UK.

  Her research interests include wireless communications and wireless system security for 5G and 6G, with a particular focus on physical layer security, context aware security, multi-factor authentication protocols, 5G/6G and the IoT, anomaly detection, machine learning for communications, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and faster than Nyquist signaling. She is a member of IEEE INGR on Security and the IEEE P1951.1 Standardization Workgroup (Smart Cities) and Chair of the IEEE Focus Group on Physical Layer Security.

• Abstract

  In sixth generation (6G) systems, sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) will enable reaching context awareness, which in turn can drive adaptation of the security controls in the Quality of Security (QoSec) framework and enable introducing security controls at all layers, including the PHY. In this talk we focus on this latter aspect and discuss recent results from the area of physical layer security (PLS) as the first line of defense for the radio access network. We will begin with a discussion on the dual role of the wireless medium as the means for node authentication (through high precision localization) and as a source of entropy (for symmetric secret key generation). Subsequently, recent results on the confidentiality / privacy that is attainable with practical finite length wiretap codes will be reviewed. Finally, turning our attention to cross-layer anomaly detection for Internet of things (IoT) networks, centralized and distributed anomaly detection algorithms - monitoring both the network and the hardware layers - will be presented for software defined wireless sensor networks. Future directions and discussion on the potential role of PLS technologies as an integral part of the 6G security toolbox, will be conclude this talk.