Secure machine-type communications toward LTE heterogeneous networks

Machine-type communication is undergoing ubiquitous development by connecting with trillions of intelligent devices and providing a broad range of applications through all of our lives. MTC can access different networks, which is similar to a fusion of heterogeneous networks, including LTE, WiFi, ZigBee, and so on. However, security and privacy issues still bring about a great challenge for the development of MTC, particularly secure transmission under heterogeneous networks. This article first presents an overview of the MTC architecture and its evolution toward LTE, security threats, and solutions. Then, as 5G systems have been designed to support a diverse set of communications, we propose a scalable cross-layer authentication solution based on MTC devices' hardware fingerprints toward an LTE heterogeneous network.