Security and Privacy in Device-to-Device (D2D) Communication: A Review

Device-to-device (D2D) communication presents a new paradigm in mobile networking to facilitate data exchange between physically proximate devices. The development of D2D is driven by mobile operators to harvest short range communications for improving network performance and supporting proximity-based services. In this paper, we investigate two fundamental and interrelated aspects of D2D communication, security and privacy, which are essential for the adoption and deployment of D2D. We present an extensive review of the state-of-the-art solutions for enhancing security and privacy in D2D communication. By summarizing the challenges, requirements, and features of different proposals, we identify lessons to be learned from existing studies and derive a set of best practices. The primary goal of our work is to equip researchers and developers with a better understanding of the underlying problems and the potential solutions for D2D security and privacy. To inspire follow-up research, we identify open problems and highlight future directions with regard to system and communication design. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review to address the fundamental security and privacy issues in D2D communication.