Total Wireless Security: Moving Closer to the Goal With Low-Layer Techniques

The authors discuss the motivation for incorporating low-layer security techniques into emerging wireless systems and the role that the PHY and MAC layers should play in the overall wireless security paradigm. A threat analysis which highlights the need for such techniques is presented and connected to the needs for the 802.1AE secure (wired) MAC standard. A high-level "Totally" secure wireless architecture is discussed and several attacks and counter-measure strategies are presented as examples. Finally, they identify which on-going and published work highlights the feasibility of the low-layer security techniques presented here and elsewhere.