Effects of co-channel interference on RIS empowered wireless networks amid multiple eavesdropping attempts

In this study, the secrecy performance of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS)-aided wireless networks in the existence of multiple interferers towards the destination is investigated. In particular, three critical issues in the design of secure RIS-assisted networks are examined: effects of interferers, operation of multiple eavesdroppers (colluding and non-colluding), and benefit of RISs. To examine their effects, the analytical expressions of secrecy outage probability are derived in a closed form. Additionally, asymptotic analyses at a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime are provided. Finally, the analytical results are validated through numerical simulations. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).