A Survey on Security in D2D Communications

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications have emerged as a promising technology for the next generation mobile communication networks and wireless systems (5G). As an underlay network of conventional cellular networks (LTE or LTE-Advanced), D2D communications have shown great potential in improving communication capability, erasing communication delay, reducing power dissipation, and fostering multifarious new applications and services. However, security in D2D communications, which is essential for the success of D2D services, has not yet been seriously studied in the literature. In this paper, we explore a security architecture for D2D communications under the framework of 3GPP LTE. We further investigate potential security threats and specify security requirements accordingly. Existing security solutions in D2D communications are seriously surveyed and evaluated based on the specified security architecture and requirements in order to figure out open research issues and motivate future research efforts.