Biblio

Information leaks are a top concern to industry and government leaders. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly growing technology capable of sensing real-world events. IoT devices lack a common security standard and typically use lightweight security solutions, exposing the sensitive real-world data they gather. Covert channels are a practical method of exfiltrating data from these devices.This research presents a novel IoT covert timing channel (CTC) that encodes data within preexisting network information, namely ports or addresses. This method eliminates the need for inter-packet delays (IPD) to encode data. Seven different encoding methods are implemented between two IoT protocols, TCP/IP and ZigBee. The TCP/IP covert channel is created by mimicking a Ring smart doorbell and implemented using Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers to generate traffic. The ZigBee channel is built by copying a Philips Hue lighting system and executed on an isolated local area network (LAN). Variants of the CTC focus either on Stealth or Bandwidth. Stealth methods mimic legitimate traffic captures to make them difficult to detect while the Bandwidth methods forgo this approach for maximum throughput. Detection results are presented using shape-based and regularity-based detection tests.The Stealth results have a throughput of 4.61 bits per second (bps) for TCP/IP and 3.90 bps for ZigBee. They also evade shape and regularity-based detection tests. The Bandwidth methods average 81.7 Kbps for TCP/IP and 9.76 bps for ZigBee but are evident in detection tests. The results show that CTC using address or port encoding can have superior throughput or detectability compared to IPD-based CTCs.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a novel paradigm that enables the development of a slew of Services for the future of technology advancements. When it comes to IoT applications, the cyber and physical worlds can be seamlessly integrated, but they are essentially limitless. However, despite the great efforts of standardization bodies, coalitions, companies, researchers, and others, there are still a slew of issues to overcome in order to fully realize the IoT's promise. These concerns should be examined from a variety of perspectives, including enabling technology, applications, business models, and social and environmental consequences. The focus of this paper is on open concerns and challenges from a technological standpoint. We will study the differences in technical such Sigfox, NB-IoT, LoRa, and 6LowPAN, and discuss their advantages and disadvantage for each technology compared with other technologies. Demonstrate that each technology has a position in the internet of things market. Each technology has different advantages and disadvantages it depends on the quality of services, latency, and battery life as a mention. The first will be analysis IoT technologies. SigFox technology offers a long-range, low-power, low-throughput communications network that is remarkably resistant to environmental interference, enabling information to be used efficiently in a wide variety of applications. We analyze how NB-IoT technology will benefit higher-value-added services markets for IoT devices that are willing to pay for exceptionally low latency and high service quality. The LoRa technology will be used as a low-cost device, as it has a very long-range (high coverage).

Security of physical layer key generation is based on the randomness and reciprocity of wireless fading channel, which has attracted more and more attention in recent years. This paper proposes a rate adaptive key agreement scheme and utilizes the received signal strength (RSS) of the channel between two wireless devices to generate the key. In conventional information reconciliation process, the bit inconsistency rate is usually eliminated by using the filter method, which increases the possibility of exposing the generated key bit string. Building on the strengths of existing secret key extraction approaches, this paper develops a scheme that uses Reed-Solomon (RS) codes, one of forward error correction channel codes, for information reconciliation. Owing to strong error correction performance of RS codes, the proposed scheme can solve the problem of inconsistent key bit string in the process of channel sensing. At the same time, the composition of RS codes can help the scheme realize rate adaptation well due to the construction principle of error correction code, which can freely control the code rate and achieve the reconciliation method of different key bit string length. Through experiments, we find that when the number of inconsistent key bits is not greater than the maximum error correction number of RS codes, it can well meet the purpose of reconciliation.

Specific emitter identification (SEI) is a physical-layer-based approach for enhancing wireless communication network security. A well-done SEI method can be widely applied in identifying the individual wireless communication device. In this paper, we propose a novel specific emitter identification method based on variational mode decomposition and histogram of oriented gradient (VMD-HOG). The signal is decomposed into specific temporal modes via VMD and HOG features are obtained from the time-frequency spectrum of temporal modes. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated both in single hop and relaying scenarios and under three channels with the number of emitters varying. Results depict that our proposed method provides great identification performance for both simulated signals and realistic data of Zigbee devices and outperforms the two existing methods in identification accuracy and computational complexity.

The pervasive and resource-constrained nature of Internet of Things (IoT) devices makes them attractive to be targeted by different means of cyber threats. There are a vast amount of botnets being deployed every day that aim to increase their presence on the Internet for realizing malicious activities with the help of the compromised interconnected devices. Therefore, monitoring IoT networks using intrusion detection systems is one of the major countermeasures against such threats. In this work, we present a machine learning based Wi-Fi intrusion detection system developed specifically for IoT devices. We show that a single multi-class classifier, which operates on the encrypted data collected from the wireless data link layer, is able to detect the benign traffic and six types of IoT attacks with an overall accuracy of 96.85%. Our model is a scalable one since there is no need to train different classifiers for different IoT devices. We also present an alternative attack classifier that outperforms the attack classification model which has been developed in an existing study using the same dataset.

Electricity has become the primary need of human life. The emerging of IoT concept recently in our lives, has offered the chance to establish energy efficient smart devices, systems and cities. Due to the urging need for conserving energy, this paper proposes an IoT based wireless energy efficient smart metering systems for smart cities. A network of smart meters is achieved to deliver the energy consumption data to the Energy/Utility provider. The star and mesh topologies are used in creating the network of smart meters in order to increase the distance of coverage. The proposed system offers an easily operated application for users as well as a Website and database for electricity Supplier Company. The proposed system design has an accuracy level of 95% and it is about 35% lower cost than its peer in the global market. The proposed design reduced the power consumption by 25%.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a heterogeneous type of network consisting of scattered sensor nodes and working together for data collection, processing, and transmission functions[1], [2]. Because WSN is widely used in vital matters, aspects of its security must also be considered. There are many types of attacks that might be carried out to disrupt WSN networks. The methods of attack that exist in WSN include jamming attack, tampering, Sybil attack, wormhole attack, hello flood attack, and, blackhole attack[3]. Blackhole attacks are one of the most dangerous attacks on WSN networks. Enhanced Check Agent method is designed to detect black hole attacks by sending a checking agent to record nodes that are considered black okay. The implementation will be tested right on a wireless sensor network using ZigBee technology. Network topology uses a mesh where each node can have more than one routing table[4]. The Enhanced Check Agent method can increase throughput to 100 percent.

This paper describes a realisation of a ResNet face recognition method through Zigbee-based wireless protocol. The system uses a CC2530 Zigbee-based radio frequency chip with connected VC0706 camera on it. The Arduino Nano had been used for organisation of data compression and effective division of Zigbee packets. The proposed solution also simplifies a data transmission within a strict bandwidth of Zigbee protocol and reliable packet forwarding in case of frequency distortion. The following investigation model uses Raspberry Pi 3 with connected Zigbee End Device (ZED) for successful receiving of important images and acceleration of deep learning interfaces. The model is integrated into a smart security system based on Zigbee modules, MySQL database, Android application and works in the background by using daemons procedures. To protect data, all wireless connections had been encrypted by the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-128) algorithm. Experimental results show a possibility to implement complex systems under restricted requirements of available transmission protocols.

More and more industrial devices are expected to connect to the internet seamlessly. IPv6-based industrial wireless network can solve the address resources limitation problem. It is a challenge about how to ensure the wireless node join security after introducing the IPv6. In this paper, we propose a multiple nodes join mechanism, which includes a timeslot allocation method and secure join process for the IPv6 over IEEE 802.15.4e network. The timeslot allocation method is designed in order to configure communication resources in the join process for the new nodes. The test platform is implemented to verify the feasibility of the mechanism. The result shows that the proposed mechanism can reduce the communication cost for multiple nodes join process and improve the efficiency.

Smart Grid is a major element of the Smart City concept that enables two-way communication of energy data between electric utilities and their consumers. These communication technologies are going through sharp modernization to meet future demand growth and to achieve reliability, security, and efficiency of the electric grid. In this paper, we implement an IPv6 based two-way communication system between the transformer agent (TA), installed at local electric transformer and various customer agents (CAs), connected to customer's smart meter. Various homes share their energy usage with the TA which in turn sends the utility's recommendations to the CAs. Raspberry Pi is used as hardware for all the CAs and the TA. We implement a self-healing mesh network between all nodes using OpenLab IEEE 802.15.4 chips and Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL), and the data is secured by RSA/AES keys. Several tests have been conducted in real environments, inside and outside of Carleton University, to test the performance of this communication network in various obstacle settings. In this paper, we highlight the details behind the implementation of this IPv6-based smart grid communication system, the related challenges, and the proposed solutions.

The number of sensors and embedded devices in an urban area can be on the order of thousands. New low-power wide area (LPWA) wireless network technologies have been proposed to support this large number of asynchronous, low-bandwidth devices. Among them, the Cooperative UltraNarrowband (C-UNB) is a clean-slate cellular network technology to connect these devices to a remote site or data collection server. C-UNB employs small bandwidth channels, and a lightweight random access protocol. In this paper, a new application is investigated - the use of C-UNB wireless networks to support the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), in order to facilitate the communication between smart meters and utilities. To this end, we adapted a mathematical model for C-UNB, and implemented a network simulation module in NS-3 to represent C-UNB's physical and medium access control layer. For the application layer, we implemented the DLMS-COSEM protocol, or Device Language Message Specification - Companion Specification for Energy Metering. Details of the simulation module are presented and we conclude that it supports the results of the mathematical model.

Recent advances in Cross-Technology Communication (CTC) enable the coexistence and collaboration among heterogeneous wireless devices operating in the same ISM band (e.g., Wi-Fi, ZigBee, and Bluetooth in 2.4 GHz). However, state-of-the-art CTC schemes are vulnerable to spoofing attacks since there is no practice authentication mechanism yet. This paper proposes a scheme to enable the spoofing attack detection for CTC in heterogeneous wireless networks by using physical layer information. First, we propose a model to detect ZigBee packets and measure the corresponding Received Signal Strength (RSS) on Wi-Fi devices. Then, we design a collaborative mechanism between Wi-Fi and ZigBee devices to detect the spoofing attack. Finally, we implement and evaluate our methods through experiments on commercial off-the- shelf (COTS) Wi-Fi and ZigBee devices. Our results show that it is possible to measure the RSS of ZigBee packets on Wi-Fi device and detect spoofing attack with both a high detection rate and a low false positive rate in heterogeneous wireless networks.

We present an intelligent system that focus on how to ensure the stability of ZigBee network automatically. First, we discussed on the character of ZigBee compared with WIFI. Pointed out advantage of ZigBee resides in security, stability, low power consumption and better expandability. Second, figuring out the shortcomings of ZigBee on application is that physical limitation of the frequency band and weak ability on diffraction, especially coming across a wall or a door in the actual environment of home. The third, to put forward a method which can be used to ensure the strength of ZigBee signal. The method is to detect the strength of ZigBee relay in advance. And then, to compare it with the threshold value which had been defined in previous. The threshold value of strength of ZigBee is the minimal and tolerable value which can ensure stable transmission of ZigBee. If the detected value is out of the range of threshold, system will prompt up warning message which can be used to hint user to add ZigBee reply between the original ZigBee node and ZigBee gateway.

Recently, as the age of the Internet of Things is approaching, there are more and more devices that communicate data with each other by incorporating sensors and communication functions in various objects. If the IoT is miniaturized, it can be regarded as a sensor having only the sensing ability and the low performance communication ability. Low-performance sensors are difficult to use high-quality communication, and wireless security used in expensive wireless communication devices cannot be applied. Therefore, this paper proposes authentication and key Agreement that can be applied in sensor networks using communication with speed less than 1 Kbps and has limited performances.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) is a resource-constrained network with machines low on power, processing and memory capabilities. Resource constraints in IoT impact the adoption of protocols for design and validation of unique identity (ID) for every machine. Malicious machines spoof ID to pose as administrative machines and program their neighbour systems in the network with malware. The cycle of ID spoofing and infecting the IP-enabled devices with malware creates an entire network popularly termed as the Botnet. In this paper, we study 6LoWPAN and ZigBee for DDoS and ID spoofing vulnerabilities. We propose a design for generation and validation of ID on such systems called Pseudo Random Identity Generator (PRIG). We compare the performance of PRIG-adapted 6LoWPAN with 6LoWPAN in a simulated personal area network (PAN) model under DDoS stress and demonstrate a 93% reduction in ID validation time as well as an improvement of 67% in overall throughput.

In the Internet of Things (IoT), smart devices are connected using various communication protocols, such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee. Some IoT devices have multiple built-in communication modules. If an IoT device equipped with multiple communication protocols is compromised by an attacker using one communication protocol (e.g., Wi-Fi), it can be exploited as an entry point to the IoT network. Another protocol (e.g., ZigBee) of this IoT device could be used to exploit vulnerabilities of other IoT devices using the same communication protocol. In order to find potential attacks caused by this kind of cross-protocol devices, we group IoT devices based on their communication protocols and construct a graphical security model for each group of devices using the same communication protocol. We combine the security models via the cross-protocol devices and compute hidden attack paths traversing different groups of devices. We use two use cases in the smart home scenario to demonstrate our approach and discuss some feasible countermeasures.

Cloud-based communications system is now widely used in many application fields such as medicine, security, environment protection, etc. Its use is being extended to the most demanding services like multimedia delivery. However, there are a lot of constraints when cloud-based sensor networks use the standard IEEE 802.15.3 or IEEE 802.15.4 technologies. This paper proposes a channel characterization scheme combined to a cross-layer admission control in dynamic cloud-based multimedia sensor networks to share the network resources among any two nodes. The analysis shows the behavior of two nodes using different network access technologies and the channel effects for each technology. Moreover, the existence of optimal node arrival rates in order to improve the usage of dynamic admission control when network resources are used is also shown. An extensive simulation study was performed to evaluate and validate the efficiency of the proposed dynamic admission control for cloud-based multimedia sensor networks.
 

Internet into our physical world and making it present everywhere. This evolution is also raising challenges in issues such as privacy, and security. For that reason, this work is focused on the integration and lightweight adaptation of existing authentication protocols, which are able also to offer authorization and access control functionalities. In particular, this work is focused on the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP). EAP is widely used protocol for access control in local area networks such Wireless (802.11) and wired (802.3). This work presents an integration of the EAP frame into IEEE 802.15.4 frames, demonstrating that EAP protocol and some of its mechanisms are feasible to be applied in constrained devices, such as the devices that are populating the IoT networks.
 

In smart grid, critical data like monitoring data, usage data, state estimation, billing data etc are regularly being talked among its elements. So, security of such a system, if violated, results in massive losses and damages. By compromising with security aspect of such a system is as good as committing suicide. Thus in this paper, we have proposed security mechanism in Advanced Metering Infrastructure of smart grid, formed as Mesh-Zigbee topology. This security mechanism involves PKI based Digital certificate Authentication and Intrusion detection system to protect the AMI from internal and external security attack.

This paper presents the relative merits of IR and microwave sensor technology and their combination with wireless camera for the development of a wall mounted wireless intrusion detection system and explain the phases by which the intrusion information are collected and sent to the central control station using wireless mesh network for analysis and processing the collected data. These days every protected zone is facing numerous security threats like trespassing or damaging of important equipments and a lot more. Unwanted intrusion has turned out to be a growing problem which has paved the way for a newer technology which detects intrusion accurately. Almost all organizations have their own conventional arrangement of protecting their zones by constructing high wall, wire fencing, power fencing or employing guard for manual observation. In case of large areas, manually observing the perimeter is not a viable option. To solve this type of problem we have developed a wall-mounted wireless fencing system. In this project I took the responsibility of studying how the different units could be collaborated and how the data collected from them could be further processed with the help of software, which was developed by me. The Intrusion detection system constitutes an important field of application for IR and microwave based wireless sensor network. A state of the art wall-mounted wireless intrusion detection system will detect intrusion automatically, through multi-level detection mechanism (IR, microwave, active RFID & camera) and will generate multi-level alert (buzzer, images, segment illumination, SMS, E-Mail) to notify security officers, owners and also illuminate the particular segment where the intrusion has happened. This system will enable the authority to quickly handle the emergency through identification of the area of incident at once and to take action quickly. IR based perimeter protection is a proven technology. However IR-based intrusion detection system is not a full-proof solution since (1) IR may fail in foggy or dusty weather condition & hence it may generate false alarm. Therefore we amalgamate this technology with Microwave based intrusion detection which can work satisfactorily in foggy weather. Also another significant arena of our proposed system is the Camera-based intrusion detection. Some industries require this feature to capture the snap-shots of the affected location instantly as the intrusion happens. The Intrusion information data are transmitted wirelessly to the control station via multi hop routing (using active RFID or IEEE 802.15.4 protocol). The Control station will receive intrusion information at real time and analyze the data with the help of the Intrusion software. It then sends SMS to the predefined numbers of the respective authority through GSM modem attached with the control station engine.

There is an increasing need for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to be more tightly integrated with the Internet. Several real world deployment of stand-alone wireless sensor networks exists. A number of solutions have been proposed to address the security threats in these WSNs. However, integrating WSNs with the Internet in such a way as to ensure a secure End-to-End (E2E) communication path between IPv6 enabled sensor networks and the Internet remains an open research issue. In this paper, the 6LoWPAN adaptation layer was extended to support both IPsec's Authentication Header (AH) and Encapsulation Security Payload (ESP). Thus, the communication endpoints in WSNs are able to communicate securely using encryption and authentication. The proposed AH and ESP compressed headers performance are evaluated via test-bed implementation in 6LoWPAN for IPv6 communications on IEEE 802.15.4 networks. The results confirm the possibility of implementing E2E security in IPv6 enabled WSNs to create a smooth transition between WSNs and the Internet. This can potentially play a big role in the emerging "Internet of Things" paradigm.

This paper proposes a security architecture for an IoT transparent middleware. Focused on bringing real life objects to the virtual realm, the proposed architecture is deployable and comprises protection measures based on existent technologies for security such as AES, TLS and oAuth. This way, privacy, authenticity, integrity and confidentiality on data exchange services are integrated to provide security for generated smart objects and for involved users and services in a reliable and deployable manner.