Brief Report on QoSec, Context Aware Security and the Role of Physical Layer Security in 6G Wireless
This work tackles security challenges for 6G wireless networks, particularly for IoT applications, but it is incremental as it builds on existing 5G security frameworks.
The paper addresses the need for enhanced security in 6G wireless access networks, proposing to integrate context-aware quality of security (QoSec) and physical layer security to manage risks and support large-scale IoT devices.
While the security literature predominantly focuses on the core network, the enhancement of the security of the beyond fifth generation (B5G) access network becomes of critical importance. Despite the strengthening of 5G security protocols with respect to LTE, there are still open issues that have not yet been fully addressed. In parallel as we move gradually away from the standard client-server networking paradigm and enter a new era of truly E2E quality of service (QoS), service level agreements (SLAs) in the near future will be expected to include guarantees about the quality of security (QoSec) as well. Incorporating context awareness in QoSec is projected to allow handle more efficiently aspects related to identifying the risk or threat level and the required security level. Finally, as novel sensing and intelligence capabilities are envisioned in 6G, security solutions from the palette of physical layer security can emerge, particularly for massive machine type communications involving large scale low-end IoT devices.