The Evolution of ICT in the Public Safety domain: Challenges and Opportunities

The services provided by public safety organizations bring value to society by creating a stable and secure environment. These services include protection to people environment and properties and they address a large number of threats both natural and man-made, acts of terrorism, technological, radiological or environmental accidents. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have always played an important role in the public safety domain. The capability of exchanging information (e.g., voice or data) is essential to improve the coordination of public safety officers during an emergency crisis. Wireless communications are particularly important in field operations to support the mobility of first responders. Operational and business requirements in the public safety domain are significantly different from the commercial domain. Innovative ICT concepts and technologies may not be directly applicable to the public safety domain or they need to be customized to fit specific requirements (e.g., security). This paper will identify the most significant challenges in the Public Safey domain, the main technical enablers and the opportunities provided by new ICT technologies. In particular, this paper focuses on the lack of interoperability and broadband connectivity for public safety organizations. The potential evolution paths for ICT in the public safety domain will also be described.JRC.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Networking Solutions for Integrated Heterogeneous Wireless Ecosystem

This work targets at applying computer networking techniques to address challenges in modern wireless networks and in various environments built around these networks. The main focus of the work is on designing and implementing prototypes and demonstrators to support research in domains of heterogeneous networks (HetNets). These research domains include centralized radio resource management in emerging cellular network architectures, network assistance role in device-to-device (D2D) communications, and studying prospective services in these networks. Within the research group the author was tasked with designing network architectures and demonstrating certain connectivity and functionality interesting for the research. The author was responsible for modifying commercial off-the-shelf equipment to become suitable for target research scenarios, selecting network technologies to achieve connectivity requirements, deploying network architecture entities within the research group's cloud platform. For HetNet track, the primary goal was to design a platform that would mimic a device connected through a heterogeneous network, allowing researchers to experiment with traffic flow optimization in an environment close to the envisioned next-generation network architecture. Prototype solution and testbed were designed building on software defined network principles of automation, abstraction and software based flow switching, and were implemented using overlay networks and virtual network functions. Within D2D communications research, the task was to design architecture demonstrating feasibility of traffic offloading from infrastructure network to direct links. Prototype was implemented with automated routing control in overlay network. To demonstrate novel services enabled by advanced security frameworks, D2D platform was augmented and a new network application has been implemented, also suitable for wearable electronics

Enabling Secure Direct Connectivity Under Intermittent Cellular Network Assistance

This work targets at investigating direct communications as a promising technology for the next-generation 5G wireless ecosystem that improves the degrees of spatial reuse and creates new opportunities for users in proximity. While direct connectivity has originally emerged as a technology enabler for public safety services, it is likely to remain in the heart of the 5G ecosystem by spawning a wide diversity of proximate applications and services. Direct communications couples together the centralized and the distributed network architectures, and as such requires respective enablers for secure, private, and trusted data exchange especially when cellular control link is not available at all times. Within the research group, the author was tasked to provide the state-of-the-art technology overview and to propose a novel algorithm for maintaining security functions of proximate devices in case of unreliable cellular connectivity, whenever a new device joins the secure group of users or an existing device leaves it. The proposed solution and its rigorous practical implementation detailed in this work open door to a new generation of secure proximity-based services and applications in future wireless communications systems

IoT Applications Computing

The evolution of emerging and innovative technologies based on Industry 4.0 concepts are transforming society and industry into a fully digitized and networked globe. Sensing, communications, and computing embedded with ambient intelligence are at the heart of the Internet of Things (IoT), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and Industry 4.0 technologies with expanding applications in manufacturing, transportation, health, building automation, agriculture, and the environment. It is expected that the emerging technology clusters of ambient intelligence computing will not only transform modern industry but also advance societal health and wellness, as well as and make the environment more sustainable. This book uses an interdisciplinary approach to explain the complex issue of scientific and technological innovations largely based on intelligent computing

A Vulnerability Management Solution for constrained IoT devices with a Trusted Execution Environment using a Hardware Root of Trust

The popularity and prevalence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has been ever increasing. They have found their way into our everyday lives and increasingly transform our living environments into smart homes. However, most of these constrained devices do not possess sufficient computational power, memory, and battery runtime in order to implement security features that are common for general purpose personal computers. Hence, the increasing numbers of interconnected consumer IoT devices are followed by an increase of their attack surface and vulnerabilities. The following thesis approaches this security issue by providing a novel approach for a Runtime IoT Security Score that provides the inexperienced user of a smart home system with profound insight into the security state of the connected IoT devices during runtime. This is achieved by combining Vulnerability Assessment with Trustworthiness Assessment of the connected devices, which has never been proposed before and represents a very valuable contribution to the state of current research. In addition to the Runtime Security Score, a holistic concept for a Vulnerability Assessment and Management (VAM) solution is proposed as another main contribution of this thesis. The effective and functional interoperability of all relevant components specified in this concept is shown with a Proof of Concept implementation.Die Popularität und Verbreitung von Geräten des Internets der Dinge (engl.~Internet of Things, IoT) nimmt ständig zu. Sie haben Einzug in unser tägliches Leben gehalten und verwandeln unsere Wohnumgebung zunehmend in ein intelligentes Zuhause. Die meisten dieser eingeschränkten Geräte verfügen jedoch nicht über genügend Rechenleistung, Speicher und Akkulaufzeit, um Sicherheitsfunktionen zu implementieren, die für allgemeine Personal Computer üblich sind. Mit der zunehmenden Zahl der vernetzten IoT-Geräte für Verbraucher steigen daher auch deren Angriffsfläche und Schwachstellen. Die vorliegende Arbeit widmet sich diesem Sicherheitsproblem, indem sie einen neuartigen Ansatz für einen Runtime IoT Security Score vorstellt, der dem unerfahrenen Benutzer eines Smart-Home-Systems einen tiefen Einblick in den Sicherheitszustand der angeschlossenen IoT-Geräte zur Laufzeit gibt. Dies wird durch die Kombination von Vulnerability Assessment mit einer Bewertung der Vertrauenswürdigkeit der angeschlossenen Geräte erreicht. Dies stellt einen neuartigen Ansatz darf und leistet damit einen sehr wertvollen Beitrag zum aktuellen Stand der Forschung. Neben dem Runtime Security Score wird als weiterer wichtiger Beitrag dieser Arbeit ein ganzheitliches Konzept für eine Vulnerability Assessment and Management (VAM) Lösung vorgeschlagen. Die effektive und funktionale Interoperabilität aller relevanten Komponenten, die in diesem Konzept spezifiziert sind, wird mit einer Proof of Concept Implementierung gezeigt

Physical layer security for machine type communication networks

Abstract. We examine the physical layer security for machine type communication networks and highlight a secure communication scenario that consists of a transmitter Alice, which employs Transmit Antenna Selection, while a legitimate receiver Bob that uses Maximum Ratio Combining, as well as an eavesdropper Eve. We provide a solution to avoid eavesdropping and provide ways to quantify security and reliability. We obtain closed-form expressions for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output and Multi-antenna Eavesdropper (MIMOME) scenario. The closed{-}form expressions for three useful variations of MIMOME scenario, i.e., MISOME, MIMOSE, and MISOSE are also provided. A low cost and less complex system for utilizing the spatial diversity in multiple antennas system, while guaranteeing secrecy and reliability. Similarly, it is also assumed that Alice, Bob, and Eve can estimate their channel state information, and then we evaluate the performance of closed-form expressions in terms of secrecy outage probability and provide Monte Carlo simulations to corroborate the proposed analytical framework