Biblio

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a vast collection of interconnected sensors, devices, and services that share data and information over the Internet with the objective of leveraging multiple information sources to optimize related systems. The technologies associated with the IoT have significantly improved the quality of many existing applications by reducing costs, improving functionality, increasing access to resources, and enhancing automation. The adoption of IoT by industries has led to the next industrial revolution: Industry 4.0. The rise of the Industrial IoT (IIoT) promises to enhance factory management, process optimization, worker safety, and more. However, the rollout of the IIoT is not without significant issues, and many of these act as major barriers that prevent fully achieving the vision of Industry 4.0. One major area of concern is the security and privacy of the massive datasets that are captured and stored, which may leak information about intellectual property, trade secrets, and other competitive knowledge. As a way forward toward solving security and privacy concerns, we aim in this paper to identify common input-output (I/O) design patterns that exist in applications of the IIoT. These design patterns enable constructing an abstract model representation of data flow semantics used by such applications, and therefore better understand how to secure the information related to IIoT operations. In this paper, we describe communication protocols and identify common I/O design patterns for IIoT applications with an emphasis on data flow in edge devices, which, in the industrial control system (ICS) setting, are most often involved in process control or monitoring.

In many industry Internet of Things applications, resources like CPU, memory, and battery power are limited and cannot afford the classic cryptographic security solutions. Silicon physical unclonable function (PUF) is a lightweight security primitive that exploits manufacturing variations during the chip fabrication process for key generation and/or device authentication. However, traditional weak PUFs such as ring oscillator (RO) PUF generate chip-unique key for each device, which restricts their application in security protocols where the same key is required to be shared in resource-constrained devices. In this article, in order to address this issue, we propose a PUF-based key sharing method for the first time. The basic idea is to implement one-to-one input-output mapping with lookup table (LUT)-based interstage crossing structures in each level of inverters of RO PUF. Individual customization on configuration bits of interstage crossing structure and different RO selections with challenges bring high flexibility. Therefore, with the flexible configuration of interstage crossing structures and challenges, crossover RO PUF can generate the same shared key for resource-constrained devices, which enables a new application for lightweight key sharing protocols.

The extensive increase in the number of IoT devices and the massive data generated and sent to the cloud hinder the cloud abilities to handle it. Further, some IoT devices are latency-sensitive. Such sensitivity makes it harder for far clouds to handle the IoT needs in a timely manner. A new technology named "Fog computing" has emerged as a solution to such problems. Fog computing relies on close by computational devices to handle the conventional cloud load. However, Fog computing introduced additional problems related to the trustworthiness and safety of such devices. Unfortunately, the suggested architectures did not consider such problem. In this paper we present a novel self-configuring fog architecture to support IoT networks with security and trust in mind. We realize the concept of Moving-target defense by mobilizing the applications inside the fog using live migrations. Performance evaluations using a benchmark for mobilized applications showed that the added overhead of live migrations is very small making it deployable in real scenarios. Finally, we presented a mathematical model to estimate the survival probabilities of both static and mobile applications within the fog. Moreover, this work can be extended to other systems such as mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETS) or in vehicular cloud computing (VCC).

Today, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS / IPS) are a necessary element of protection against network attacks. The main goal of such systems is to identify an unauthorized access to the network and take appropriate countermeasures: alarming security officers about intrusion, reconfiguration of firewall to block further acts of the attacker, protection against cyberattacks and malware. For traditional computer networks there are a large number of sufficiently effective approaches for protection against malicious activity, however, for the rapidly developing dynamic adhoc networks (Internet of Things - IoT, MANET, WSN, etc.) the task of creating a universal protection means is quite acute. In this paper, we review various methods for detecting polymorphic intrusion activity (polymorphic viral code and sequences of operations), present a comparative analysis, and implement the suggested technology for detecting polymorphic chains of operations using bioinformatics for IoT. The proposed approach has been tested with different lengths of operation sequences and different k-measures, as a result of which the optimal parameters of the proposed method have been determined.

IoT devices can be used to fulfil many of our daily tasks. IoT could be wearable devices, home appliances, or even light bulbs. With the introduction of this new technology, however, vulnerabilities are being introduced and can be leveraged or exploited by malicious users. One common vehicle of exploitation is malicious software, or malware. Malware can be extremely harmful and compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA triad) of information systems. This paper analyzes the types of malware attacks, introduce some mitigation approaches and discusses future challenges.

Not only the number of deployed IoT devices increases but also that of IoT malware increases. We eager to understand the threat made by IoT malware but we lack tools to observe, analyze and detect them. We design and implement an automatic, virtual machine-based profiling system to collect valuable IoT malware behavior, such as API call invocation, system call execution, etc. In addition to conventional profiling methods (e.g., strace and packet capture), the proposed profiling system adapts virtual machine introspection based API hooking technique to intercept API call invocation by malware, so that our introspection would not be detected by IoT malware. We then propose a method to convert the multiple sequential data (API calls) to a family behavior graph for further analysis.

Location privacy is one of most frequently discussed terms in the mobile devices security breaches and data leaks. With the expected growth of the number of IoT devices, which is 20 billions by 2020., location privacy issues will be further brought to focus. In this paper we give an overview of location privacy implications in wireless networks, mainly focusing on user's Preferred Network List (list of previously used WiFi Access Points) contained within WiFi Probe Request packets. We will showcase the existing work and suggest interesting topics for future work. A chronological overview of sensitive location data we collected on a musical festival in years 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 is provided. We conclude that using passive WiFi monitoring scans produces different results through years, with a significant increase in the usage of a more secure Broadcast Probe Request packets and MAC address randomizations by the smartphone operating systems.

The safety of critical cyber-physical IoT devices hinges on the security of their embedded software that implements control algorithms for monitoring and control of the associated physical processes, e.g., robotics and drones. Reverse engineering of the corresponding embedded controller software binaries enables their security analysis by extracting high-level, domain-specific, and cyber-physical execution semantic information from executables. We present MISMO, a domain-specific reverse engineering framework for embedded binary code in emerging cyber-physical IoT control application domains. The reverse engineering outcomes can be used for firmware vulnerability assessment, memory forensics analysis, targeted memory data attacks, or binary patching for dynamic selective memory protection (e.g., important control algorithm parameters). MISMO performs semantic-matching at an algorithmic level that can help with the understanding of any possible cyber-physical security flaws. MISMO compares low-level binary symbolic values and high-level algorithmic expressions to extract domain-specific semantic information for the binary's code and data. MISMO enables a finer-grained understanding of the controller by identifying the specific control and state estimation algorithms used. We evaluated MISMO on 2,263 popular firmware binaries by 30 commercial vendors from 6 application domains including drones, self-driving cars, smart homes, robotics, 3D printers, and the Linux kernel controllers. The results show that MISMO can accurately extract the algorithm-level semantics of the embedded binary code and data regions. We discovered a zero-day vulnerability in the Linux kernel controllers versions 3.13 and above.

With the vast increase in data transmission due to a large number of information collected by devices, data management, and security has been a challenge for organizations. Many data owners (DOs) outsource their data to cloud repositories due to several economic advantages cloud service providers present. However, DOs, after their data are outsourced, do not have complete control of the data, and therefore, external systems are incorporated to manage the data. Several kinds of research refer to the use of encryption techniques to prevent unauthorized access to data but prove to be deficient in providing suitable solutions to the problem. In this article, we propose a secure fine-grain access control system for outsourced data, which supports read and write operations to the data. We make use of an attribute-based encryption (ABE) scheme, which is regarded as a suitable scheme to achieve access control for security and privacy (confidentiality) of outsourced data. This article considers different categories of data users, and make provisions for distinct access roles and permissible actions on the outsourced data with dynamic and efficient policy updates to the corresponding ciphertext in cloud repositories. We adopt blockchain technologies to enhance traceability and visibility to enable control over outsourced data by a DO. The security analysis presented demonstrates that the security properties of the system are not compromised. Results based on extensive experiments illustrate the efficiency and scalability of our system.

Vehicular ad hoc network is one of most recent research areas to deploy intelligent Transport System. Due to their highly dynamic topology, energy constrained and no central point coordination, routing with minimal delay, minimal energy and maximize throughput is a big challenge. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is new paradigm to improve overall network lifetime. It incorporates dynamic changes with minimal end-end delay, and enhances network intelligence. Along with this, intelligence secure routing is also a major constraint. This paper proposes a novel approach to Energy efficient secured routing protocol for Software Defined Internet of vehicles using Restricted Boltzmann Algorithm. This algorithm is to detect hostile routes with minimum delay, minimum energy and maximum throughput compared with traditional routing protocols.

With the transformation of connected vehicles into the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), the time is now ripe for paving the way for the next generation of connected vehicles with novel applications and innovative security measures. The connected vehicles are experiencing prenominal growth in the auto industry, but are still studded with many security and privacy vulnerabilities. Today's IoV applications are part of cyber physical communication systems that collect useful information from thousands of smart sensors associated with the connected vehicles. The technology advancement has paved the way for connected vehicles to share significant information among drivers, auto manufacturers, auto insurance companies and operational and maintenance service providers for various applications. The critical issues in engineering the IoV applications are effective to use of the available spectrum and effective allocation of good channels an opportunistic manner to establish connectivity among vehicles, and the effective utilization of the infrastructure under various traffic conditions. Security and privacy in information sharing are the main concerns in a connected vehicle communication network. Blockchain technology facilitates secured communication among users in a connected vehicles network. Originally, blockchain technology was developed and employed with the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, to provide increased trust, reliability, and security among users based on peer-to-peer networks for transaction sharing. In this paper, we propose to integrate blockchain technology into ad hoc vehicular networking so that the vehicles can share network resources with increased trust, reliability, and security using distributed access control system and can benefit a wider scope of scalable IoV applications scenarios for decision making. The proposed architecture is the faithful environment for information sharing among connected vehicles. Blockchain technology allows multiple copies of data storage at the distribution cloud. Distributed access control system is significantly more secure than a traditional centralized system. This paper also describes how important of ad hoc vehicular networking in human life, possibilities in real-world implementation and its future trends. The ad hoc vehicular networking may become one of the most trendy networking concepts in the future that has the perspective to bring out much ease human beneficial and secured applications.

Internet of Vehicles are the important part of Intelligence Traffic Systems (ITS), which are essential for the national security and economy development. The impact assessment for cyberattacks in the IoV protection is of great theoretical and practical significance. Most of the researchers in this field pay attention on the attack impact on a vehicle, and the seldom investigate the impact on the whole system which combines all the vehicles as a whole integration. To tackle this problem, a cyber-physical interaction model based impact assessment of cyberattacks is presented. In this approach, the operation of IoV is modeled from the cyberphysical interaction perspective, and then the propagating process from cyber layer to physical layer is investigated. Based on above model, the impact assessment of cyberattacks on IoV is realized quantitatively. Finally, a simulation on an IoV is conducted to verify the effectiveness of this approach.

Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming increasingly important to intelligent transportation system stakeholders, including cloud-based vehicular cloud (VC) and internet of vehicles (IoV) paradigms. This new trend involves communication and data exchange between several objects within different layers of control. Security in such a deployment is pivotal to realize the general IoT-based smart city. However, the evaluation of the degree of security regarding these paradigms remains a challenge. This study aims to discover and identify common security criteria (CSC) from a context-based analysis pattern and later to discuss, compare, and aggregate a conceptual model of CSC impartially. A privacy granularity classification that maintains data confidentiality is proposed alongside the security selection criteria.

Industrial Control systems traditionally achieved security by using proprietary protocols to communicate in an isolated environment from the outside. This paradigm is changed with the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things that foresees flexible and interconnected systems. In this contribution, a device acting as a connection between the operational technology network and information technology network is proposed. The device is an intrusion detection system related to legacy systems that is able to collect and reporting data to and from industrial IoT devices. It is based on the common signature based intrusion detection system developed in the information technology domain, however, to cope with the constraints of the operation technology domain, it exploits anomaly based features. Specifically, it is able to analyze the traffic on the network at application layer by mean of deep packet inspection, parsing the information carried by the proprietary protocols. At a later stage, it collect and aggregate data from and to IoT domain. A simple set up is considered to prove the effectiveness of the approach.

Smart governments are known as extensions of e-governments both built on the Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we classify smart governments into two types (1) new generation and (2) extended smart-government. We then put forth a framework for smart governments implementation and discuss the major challenges in its implementation showing security as the most prominent challenge in USA, mindscaping in Kuwait and investment in India.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) era raise, billions of additional connected devices in new locations and applications will create new challenges. Security and privacy are among the major challenges in IoT as any breaches and misuse in those aspects will have the adverse impact on users. Among many factors that determine the security of any system, human factor is the most important aspect to be considered; as it is renowned that human is the weakest link in the information security cycle. Experts express the need to increase cyber resilience culture and a focus on the human factors involved in cybersecurity to counter cyber risks. The aim of this study is to propose a conceptual model to improve cyber resilience in IoT users that is adapted from a model in public health sector. Cyber resilience is improved through promoting security behavior by gathering the existing knowledge and gain understanding about every contributing aspects. The proposed approach is expected to be used as foundation for government, especially in Indonesia, to derive strategies in improving cyber resilience of IoT users.

Healthcare experts and researchers have been promoting the need for IoT-based remote health monitoring systems that take care of the health of elderly people. However, such systems may generate large amounts of data, which makes the security and privacy of such data to become imperative. This paper studies the security and privacy concerns of the existing Healthcare Monitoring System (HMS) and proposes a reference architecture (security integration framework) for managing IoT-based healthcare monitoring systems that ensures security, privacy, and reliable service delivery for patients and elderly people to reduce and avoid health related risks. Our proposed framework will be in the form of state-of-the-art Security Platform, for HMS, using the emerging Software Defined Network (SDN) networking paradigm. Our proposed integration framework eliminates the dependency on specific Software or vendor for different security systems, and allows for the benefits from the functional and secure applications, and services provided by the SDN platform.

The proliferation of IoT devices in smart homes, hospitals, and enterprise networks is wide-spread and continuing to increase in a superlinear manner. The question is: how can one assess the security of an IoT network in a holistic manner? In this paper, we have explored two dimensions of security assessment- using vulnerability information and attack vectors of IoT devices and their underlying components (compositional security scores) and using SIEM logs captured from the communications and operations of such devices in a network (dynamic activity metrics). These measures are used to evaluate the security of IoT devices and the overall IoT network, demonstrating the effectiveness of attack circuits as practical tools for computing security metrics (exploitability, impact, and risk to confidentiality, integrity, and availability) of the network. We decided to approach threat modeling using attack graphs. To that end, we propose the notion of attack circuits, which are generated from input/output pairs constructed from CVEs using NLP, and an attack graph composed of these circuits. Our system provides insight into possible attack paths an adversary may utilize based on their exploitability, impact, or overall risk. We have performed experiments on IoT networks to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed techniques.

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) is an industry standard that can assess the vulnerability of nodes in traditional computer systems. The metrics computed by CVSS would determine critical nodes and attack paths. However, traditional IT security models would not fit IoT embedded networks due to distinct nature and unique characteristics of IoT systems. This paper analyses the application of CVSS for IoT embedded systems and proposes an improved vulnerability scoring system based on CVSS v3 framework. The proposed framework, named CVSSIoT, is applied to a realistic IT supply chain system and the results are compared with the actual vulnerabilities from the national vulnerability database. The comparison result validates the proposed model. CVSSIoT is not only effective, simple and capable of vulnerability evaluation for traditional IT system, but also exploits unique characteristics of IoT devices.

In this paper, we propose a new method for optimizing the deployment of security solutions within an IoT network. Our approach uses dominating sets and centrality metrics to propose an IoT security framework where security functions are optimally deployed among devices. An example of such a solution is presented based on EndToEnd like encryption. The results reveal overall increased security within the network with minimal impact on the traffic.

Nowadays, trust and reputation models are used to build a wide range of trust-based security mechanisms and trust-based service management applications on the Internet of Things (IoT). Considering trust as a single unit can result in missing important and significant factors. We split trust into its building-blocks, then we sort and assign weight to these building-blocks (trust metrics) on the basis of its priorities for the transaction context of a particular goal. To perform these processes, we consider trust as a multi-criteria decision-making problem, where a set of trust worthiness metrics represent the decision criteria. We introduce Entropy-based fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (EFAHP) as a trust model for selecting a trustworthy service provider, since the sense of decision making regarding multi-metrics trust is structural. EFAHP gives 1) fuzziness, which fits the vagueness, uncertainty, and subjectivity of trust attributes; 2) AHP, which is a systematic way for making decisions in complex multi-criteria decision making; and 3) entropy concept, which is utilized to calculate the aggregate weights for each service provider. We present a numerical illustration in trust-based Service Oriented Architecture in the IoT (SOA-IoT) to demonstrate the service provider selection using the EFAHP Model in assessing and aggregating the trust scores.

It is expected that the concept of Internet of everything will be realized in 2020 because of the coming of the 5G wireless communication technology. Internet of Things (IoT) services in various fields require different types of network service features, such as mobility, security, bandwidth, latency, reliability and control strategies. In order to solve the complex requirements and provide customized services, a new network architecture is needed. To change the traditional control mode used in the traditional network architecture, the Software Defined Network (SDN) is proposed. First, SDN divides the network into the Control Plane and Data Plane and then delegates the network management authority to the controller of the control layer. This allows centralized control of connections of a large number of devices. Second, SDN can help realizing the network slicing in the aspect of network layer. With the network slicing technology proposed by 5G, it can cut the 5G network out of multiple virtual networks and each virtual network is to support the needs of diverse users. In this work, we design and develop a network slicing framework. The contributions of this article are two folds. First, through SDN technology, we develop to provide the corresponding end-to-end (E2E) network slicing for IoT applications with different requirements. Second, we develop a dynamic network slice resource scheduling and management method based on SDN to meet the services' requirements with time-varying characteristics. This is usually observed in streaming and services with bursty traffic. A prototyping system is completed. The effectiveness of the system is demonstrated by using an electronic fence application as a use case.

System assurance is the justified confidence that a system functions as intended and is free of exploitable vulnerabilities, either intentionally or unintentionally designed or inserted as part of the system at any time during the life cycle. The computation and communication backbone of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other cyber-physical systems (CPS) makes them vulnerable to classes of threats previously not relevant for many physical control and computational systems. The design of resilient IoT systems encompasses vulnerabilities to adversarial disruption (Security), behavior in an operational environments (Function), and increasing interdependencies (Connectedness). System assurance can be met only through a comprehensive and aggressive systems engineering approach. Engineering methods to "design in" security have been explored in the United States through two separate research programs, one through the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) and one through the Defense Advanced Research Process Agency (DARPA). This paper integrates these two programs and discusses how assurance practices can be improved using new system engineering and system design strategies that rely on both functional and formal design methods.

The advancement and penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) and renewable energy sources (RES) are transforming legacy energy systems in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions and energy waste. Demand Response (DR) has been identified as a key enabler of integrating these, and other, Smart Grid technologies, while, simultaneously, ensuring grid stability and secure energy supply. The massive deployment of smart meters, IoT devices and DERs dictate the need to move to decentralized, or even localized, DR schemes in the face of the increased scale and complexity of monitoring and coordinating the actors and devices in modern smart grids. Furthermore, there is an inherent need to guarantee interoperability, due to the vast number of, e.g., hardware and software stakeholders, and, more importantly, promote trust and incentivize the participation of customers in DR schemes, if they are to be successfully deployed.In this work, we illustrate the design of an energy system that addresses all of the roadblocks that hinder the large scale deployment of DR services. Our DR framework incorporates modern Smart Grid technologies, such as fog-enabled and IoT devices, DERs and RES to, among others, automate asset handling and various time-consuming workflows. To guarantee interoperability, our system employs OpenADR, which standardizes the communication of DR signals among energy stakeholders. Our approach acknowledges the need for decentralization and employs blockchains and smart contracts to deliver a secure, privacy-preserving, tamper-resistant, auditable and reliable DR framework. Blockchains provide the infrastructure to design innovative DR schemes and incentivize active consumer participation as their aforementioned properties promote transparency and trust. In addition, we harness the power of smart contracts which allows us to design and implement fully automated contractual agreements both among involved stakeholders, as well as on a machine-to-machine basis. Smart contracts are digital agents that "live" in the blockchain and can encode, execute and enforce arbitrary agreements. To illustrate the potential and effectiveness of our smart contract-based DR framework, we present a case study that describes the exchange of DR signals and the autonomous instantiation of smart contracts among involved participants to mediate and monitor transactions, enforce contractual clauses, regulate energy supply and handle payments/penalties.

Advancement in communication technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving adoption in smart cities that aims to increase operational efficiency and improve the quality of services and citizen welfare, among other potential benefits. The privacy, reliability, and integrity of communications must be ensured so that actions can be appropriate, safe, accurate, and implemented promptly after receiving actionable information. In this work, we present a multi-tier methodology consisting of an authentication and trust-building/distribution framework designed to ensure the safety and validity of the information exchanged in the system. Blockchain protocols and Radio Frequency-Distinct Native Attributes (RF-DNA) combine to provide a hardware-software codesigned system for enhanced device identity and overall system trustworthiness. Our threat model accounts for counterfeiting, breakout fraud, and bad mouthing of one entity by others. Entity trust (e.g., IoT devices) depends on quality and level of participation, quality of messages, lifetime of a given entity in the system, and the number of known "bad" (non-consensus) messages sent by that entity. Based on this approach to trust, we are able to adjust trust upward and downward as a function of real-time and past behavior, providing other participants with a trust value upon which to judge information from and interactions with the given entity. This approach thereby reduces the potential for manipulation of an IoT system by a bad or byzantine actor.