Visible to the public Biblio

Filters: Author is Steger, Christian  [Clear All Filters]
2022-08-04
Pirker, Dominic, Fischer, Thomas, Witschnig, Harald, Steger, Christian.  2021.  velink - A Blockchain-based Shared Mobility Platform for Private and Commercial Vehicles utilizing ERC-721 Tokens. 2021 IEEE 5th International Conference on Cryptography, Security and Privacy (CSP). :62—67.
Transportation of people and goods is important and crucial in the context of smart cities. The trend in regard of people's mobility is moving from privately owned vehicles towards shared mobility. This trend is even stronger in urban areas, where space for parking is limited, and the mobility is supported by the public transport system, which lowers the need for private vehicles. Several challenges and barriers of currently available solutions retard a massive growth of this mobility option, such as the trust problem, data monopolism, or intermediary costs. Decentralizing mobility management is a promising approach to solve the current problems of the mobility market, allowing to move towards a more usable internet of mobility and smart transportation. Leveraging blockchain technology allows to cut intermediary costs, by utilizing smart contracts. Important in this ecosystem is the proof of identity of participants in the blockchain network. To proof the possession of the claimed identity, the private key corresponding to the wallet address is utilized, and therefore essential to protect. In this paper, a blockchain-based shared mobility platform is proposed and a proof-of-concept is shown. First, current problems and state-of-the-art systems are analyzed. Then, a decentralized concept is built based on ERC-721 tokens, implemented in a smart contract, and augmented with a Hardware Security Module (HSM) to protect the confidential key material. Finally, the system is evaluated and compared against state-of-the-art solutions.
2022-02-04
Basic, Fikret, Gaertner, Martin, Steger, Christian.  2021.  Towards Trustworthy NFC-based Sensor Readout for Battery Packs in Battery Management Systems. 2021 IEEE International Conference on RFID Technology and Applications (RFID-TA). :285—288.
In the last several years, wireless Battery Management Systems (BMS) have slowly become a topic of interest from both academia and industry. It came from a necessity derived from the increased production and use in different systems, including electric vehicles. Wireless communication allows for a more flexible and cost-efficient sensor installation in battery packs. However, many wireless technologies, such as those that use the 2.4 GHz frequency band, suffer from interference limitations that need to be addressed. In this paper, we present an alternative approach to communication in BMS that relies on the use of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology for battery sensor readouts. Due to a vital concern over the counterfeited battery pack products, security measures are also considered. To this end, we propose the use of an effective and easy to integrate authentication schema that is supported by dedicated NFC devices. To test the usability of our design, a demonstrator using the targeted devices was implemented and evaluated.
2020-06-15
Gressl, Lukas, Steger, Christian, Neffe, Ulrich.  2019.  Consideration of Security Attacks in the Design Space Exploration of Embedded Systems. 2019 22nd Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD). :530–537.
Designing secure systems is a complex task, particularly for designers who are no security experts. Cyber security plays a key role in embedded systems, especially for the domain of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT systems of this kind are becoming increasingly important in daily life as they simplify various tasks. They are usually small, either embedded into bigger systems or battery driven, and perform monitoring or one shot tasks. Thus, they are subject to manifold constraints in terms of performance, power consumption, chip area, etc. As they are continuously connected to the internet and utilize our private data to perform their tasks, they are interesting for potential attackers. Cyber security thus plays an important role for the design of an IoT system. As the usage of security measures usually increases both computation time, as well as power consumption, a conflict between these constraints must be solved. For the designers of such systems, balancing these constraints constitutes a highly complex task. In this paper we propose a novel approach for considering possible security attacks on embedded systems, simplifying the consideration of security requirements immediately at the start of the design process. We introduce a security aware design space exploration framework which based on an architectural, behavioral and security attack description, finds the optimal design for IoT systems. We also demonstrate the feasibility and the benefits of our framework based on a door access system use case.