Biblio

The continuous progress of electronic equipments has influenced car manufacturers, leading to the integration of the latest infotainment technologies and providing connection to external devices, such as mobile phones. Modern cars work with ECUs (Electronic Control Units) that handle user interactions and sensor data, by also sending information to actuators using simple, reliable and efficient networks with fast protocols, like CAN (Controller Area Network). This is the most used vehicular protocol, which allows interconnecting different ECUs, making them interact in a synergic manner. On the down side, there is a security risk related to the exposition of malicious ECU's frames-possibly generated by compromised devices-which can lead to the possibility to remote control all the car equipments (like brakes and others) by an attacker. We propose a solution to this problem, designing an authentication and encryption system above CAN, called AuthentiCAN. Our proposal is tailored for the evolution of CAN called CAN-FD, and avoids the possibility for an attacker to inject malicious frames that are not discarded by the destination ECUs. Also, we avoid the possibility for an attacker to learn the interactions that occur across ECUs, with the objective of maliciously replaying messages-which would lead the actuator's logic to be no longer compliant with the actual data sources. We also present a simulation study of our solution, where we provide an assessment of its overhead, e.g. in terms of reduction of the throughput of data-unit transfer over CAN-FD, caused by the added security features.

Nowadays, physical health of equipment controlled by Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is a significant concern. This paper reports a work, in which, a hardware is placed between Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and the actuator as a solution. The proposed hardware operates in two conditions, i.e. passive and active. Operation of the proposed solution is based on the repetitive operational profile of the actuators. The normal operational profile of the actuator is fed to the protective hardware and is considered as the normal operating condition. In the normal operating condition, the middleware operates in its passive mode and simply monitors electronic signals passing between PLC and Actuator. In case of any malicious operation, the proposed hardware operates in its active mode and both slowly stops the actuator and sends an alert to SCADA server initiating execution of the actuator's emergency profile. Thus, the proposed hardware gains control over the actuator and prevents any physical damage on the operating devices. Two sample experiments are reported in which, results of implementing the proposed solution are reported and assessed. Results show that once the PLC sends incorrect data to actuator, the proposed hardware detects it as an anomaly. Therefore, it does not allow the PLC to send incorrect and unauthorized data pattern to its actuator. Significance of the paper is in introducing a solution to prevent destruction of physical devices apart from source or purpose of the encountered anomaly and apart from CPS functionality or PLC model and operation.

Nowadays, our surrounding environment is more and more scattered with various types of sensors. Due to their intrinsic properties and representation formats, they form small islands isolated from each other. In order to increase interoperability and release their full capabilities, we propose to represent devices descriptions including data and service invocation with a common model allowing to compose mashups of heterogeneous sensors. Pushing this paradigm further, we also propose to augment service descriptions with a discovery protocol easing automatic assimilation of knowledge. In this work, we describe the architecture supporting what can be called a Semantic Sensor Web-of-Things. As proof of concept, we apply our proposal to the domain of smart buildings, composing a novel ontology covering heterogeneous sensing, actuation and service invocation. Our architecture also emphasizes on the energetic aspect and is optimized for constrained environments.