Cited by 160IoT and Edge/Fog ComputingNetwork Security and Intrusion DetectionSmart Grid Security and Resilience

Deep learning for signal authentication and security in massive internet-of-things systems

Open access
Ferdowsi, Aidin, Saad, Walid·2019·IEEE Transactions on Communications

Abstract

Secure signal authentication is arguably one of the most challenging problems in the Internet of Things (IoT), due to the large-scale nature of the system and its susceptibility to man-in-the-middle and data-injection attacks. In this paper, a novel watermarking algorithm is proposed for dynamic authentication of IoT signals to detect cyber-attacks. The proposed watermarking algorithm, based on a deep learning long short-term memory structure, enables the IoT devices (IoTDs) to extract a set of stochastic features from their generated signal and dynamically watermark these features into the signal. This method enables the IoT gateway, which collects signals from the IoTDs, to effectively authenticate the reliability of the signals. Moreover, in massive IoT scenarios, since the gateway cannot authenticate all of the IoTDs simultaneously due to computational limitations, a game-theoretic framework is proposed to improve the gateway's decision making process by predicting vulnerable IoTDs. The mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium (MSNE) for this game is derived, and the uniqueness of the expected utility at the equilibrium is proven. In the massive IoT system, due to the large set of available actions for the gateway, the MSNE is shown to be analytically challenging to derive, and thus, a learning algorithm that converges to the MSNE is proposed. Moreover, in order to handle incomplete information scenarios, in which the gateway cannot access the state of the unauthenticated IoTDs, a deep reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed to dynamically predict the state of unauthenticated IoTDs and allow the gateway to decide on which IoTDs to authenticate. Simulation results show that with an attack detection delay of under 1 s, the messages can be transmitted from IoTDs with an almost 100% reliability. The results also show that by optimally predicting the set of vulnerable IoTDs, the proposed deep reinforcement learning algorithm reduces the number of compromised IoTDs by up to 30%, compared to an equal probability baseline.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1109/tcomm.2018.2878025

Cites

50 of 50 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Ferdowsi, A., & Saad, W.
Affiliations
Virginia Tech (US)
Venue
IEEE Transactions on Communications
Published
2019-02
Volume
67
Issue
2
Pages
1371-1387
ISSN
  • 0090-6778 (ISSN-L)
  • 1558-0857
OpenAlex
W2793350679
Cited by
160
References
50
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1
FWCI
12.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • IEEE Transactions on Communications (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
National Science Foundation (OAC-1541105, CNS-1446621, CNS-CNS-1524634)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Network Security and Intrusion Detection
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Smart Grid Security and Resilience
Keywords
signal authentication, Internet of Things security, dynamic watermarking, long short-term memory, cyberattack detection, man-in-the-middle attacks, false data injection attacks, mixed strategy equilibrium, deep reinforcement learning, IoT gateway, incomplete information games

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review