Doctorate thesis defense of Mariem SALHI

Doctorate thesis defense on January 29^th 2024 at 09H00 AM ,in Amphitheater Ibn Khaldoun, SUP'COM 2.

Entitled :Enhancing Security in 5G and Beyond Wireless Networks

Presented by :Mariem Salhi

Committee

Abstract

The evolution towards 5G system and beyond is accompanied with fundamental changes and requirements in different levels. In the air interface level, higher data rates are required. About 1000x higher throughput is expected, together with lower latencies, lower power consumption, as well as lower costs. To respond to these requirements, new technologies have gained great interest, including massive MIMO, millimeter wave transmission, non-orthogonal multiple access strategies, as well as optical communication. Moreover, a densification of the network through the deployment of smallcells, including mobile smallcells on the road, is one of the fundamental aspects of future cellular networks. Furthermore, the 5G networks are characterized by a very diversified infrastructure including a variety of services, user types, and applications. In the outdoor, mobile smallcells are becoming an important feature of the future cellular networks providing different services on the road. One major challenge of this special environment is guaranteeing a seamless connectivity despite the high mobility of vehicles and at the same time mitigating interference and jamming attacks which can lead to connection drop. In the indoor, one of the important environments that is undergoing important infrastructural and application changes, is the enterprise network. This includes machine-to-machine communication, higher mobility, diversified QoS constraint services, etc. The major concerns of an enterprise is to ensure the effectiveness of its operations throughout the network, through high security, high QoS, and low cost communication systems. On another level, the evolution towards 6G and beyond systems is characterized by widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. Drones, equipped with advanced monitoring and surveillance capabilities, represent a double-edged weapon and can either enhance the physical security of critical infrastructure or threaten it in case it was a malicious drone. This case is less investigated

In this regard, this thesis has three main goals dealing with the security enhancement in 5G and Beyong wireless systems. The first goal consists in enhancing the system capability of next generation networks both indoor and outdoor. At the indoor level, we are concerned with enhancing the communication experience within the wide area enterprise network. Specifically, we aim at ensuring high security and high quality of service (QoS) through an optimized low-cost all-optical solution based on a wireless connection on the access level through visible light communication (VLC). At the outdoor level, we aim at enhancing the network capability in guaranteeing reliable transmission for users on the move. The second objective of this thesis is to promote physical layer security, in both optical and radio transmission connections. In the former type of connection, the goal is to build the primary security features on the optical medium, specifically the authentication, the integrity and the confidentiality. In the latter type of connection, the primary goal is to mitigate physical layer denial of service attacks. The third objective of this thesis is to promote the network capability in detecting uncooperative mobile devices. As these devices represent threat to the system, it is a critical step to detect their presence and localize them. We focus on both active devices, specifically jammer emitting disrupting signals, and non-active devices such as suspicious devices moving at the borders of critical areas without emitting any signal.

Keywords

Security, VPN, QoS, Optical Communication, Mobile Wireless Communication, 5G and Beyond, Network Capability.