Publikation
Context as a Factor: The Aspect of Physical Layer Security in Multi-Factor Authentication Schemes
Christoph Lipps; Andreas Weinand; Ihab Alzalam; Hans Dieter Schotten
In: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security. International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ICCWS-2025), March 27-29, Williamsburg, VA, VA, USA, Academic Conferences International, 3/2025.
Zusammenfassung
Integrity, trustworthiness and authenticity are the fundamental prerequisites for social interaction, but particularly for the exchange of information and collaboration. Trust cannot be established and further developed, sensitive and confidential information cannot be exchanged without unambiguous and undoubted knowledge (and proof) of whom is being interacted with. An additional dimension is added to this scenario by the increasing globalization and interconnection towards a hyper-connected world: (Communication) participants do not necessarily have to be in close physical and social proximity; access to systems is conceivable from anywhere around the globe.
Thereby, the authentication phase involves verifying that an entity (human or machine) is who she claims to be. The requirement exists in particular due to the heterogeneity of the systems: human authentication requires different characteristics than those of a machine; this applies both from the verifier's perspective and for the entity to be verified. Although there have already been an evolution of methods from a security perspective, starting with Single-Factor Authentication (SFA) -which uses a single factor-, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) towards Strong Authentication, however, the use and integration of further additional information and characteristics to increase plausibility is becoming paramount: the factor of context.
Therefore, in this work the role of additional -context-, information based on the methods of Physical Layer Security (PhySec) is highlighted, and is discussed together with the approaches of wireless Physical Layer Authentication (PLA). Particularly with regard to future telecommunications infrastructure towards Beyond 5G (B5G) and the Sixth Generation (6G) wireless systems, but also in terms of the (Industrial) Internet of Things ((I)IoT) and (Industrial) Metaverse, enabling technologies such as Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs), Wireless Optical Communication (WOC) as wells as the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods and the consideration of hardware properties through Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs), open up a multitude of innovative possibilities to render the authentication of entities (human and machine) more secure and trustworthy. The different concepts and possibilities are compared in terms of their requirements, limitations and usability, thus giving the reader an indication of which method can be used in which use case.