Secure and Successful Transmission Probability Analysis for PLC Networks

In this paper, we analyze a typical PLC system's data transmission security and reliability. In particular, we consider a passive adversary model–commonly assumed in the literature–and a friendly jamming technique to thwart the attacker. Overall, several contributions are provided: First, the most relevant PLS techniques in the literature are detailed, focusing on the applications, advantages, and disadvantages of each technique, as well as the related PLS performance analysis metrics. Then, we derive the expression of a novel PLC performance analysis metric: the secure and successful transmission probability (SSTP) of the considered PLC system model. Such a metric captures aspects that are not considered in the available ones, and we use it to analyze our use case, considering the adoption of a friendly jamming technique to thwart a passive eavesdropping attack. A complete analytical characterization of the introduced use case is provided. Finally, numerical results are presented to validate the obtained analytical expressions and to assess the relevant PLS and link reliability performances. The results show the significant impacts of the transmission distances, the used carrier frequency, and the jamming signal power on the overall quality of the achieved security and transmission performances. Other than being interesting on their own, these results also provide direct guidance on effectively tuning countermeasures against the considered adversary.