An Authentication Protocol for Future Sensor Networks

Authentication is one of the essential security services in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for ensuring secure data sessions. Sensor node authentication ensures the confidentiality and validity of data collected by the sensor node, whereas user authentication guarantees that only legitimate users can access the sensor data. In a mobile WSN, sensor and user nodes move across the network and exchange data with multiple nodes, thus experiencing the authentication process multiple times. The integration of WSNs with Internet of Things (IoT) brings forth a new kind of WSN architecture along with stricter security requirements; for instance, a sensor node or a user node may need to establish multiple concurrent secure data sessions. With concurrent data sessions, the frequency of the re-authentication process increases in proportion to the number of concurrent connections, which makes the security issue even more challenging. The currently available authentication protocols were designed for the autonomous WSN and do not account for the above requirements. In this paper, we present a novel, lightweight and efficient key exchange and authentication protocol suite called the Secure Mobile Sensor Network (SMSN) Authentication Protocol. In the SMSN a mobile node goes through an initial authentication procedure and receives a re-authentication ticket from the base station. Later a mobile node can use this re-authentication ticket when establishing multiple data exchange sessions and/or when moving across the network. This scheme reduces the communication and computational complexity of the authentication process. We proved the strength of our protocol with rigorous security analysis and simulated the SMSN and previously proposed schemes in an automated protocol verifier tool. Finally, we compared the computational complexity and communication cost against well-known authentication protocols.Comment: This article is accepted for the publication in "Sensors" journal. 29 pages, 15 figure

A down-to-earth integration of Named Data Networking in the real-world IoT

International audienceThe IEEE802.15.4 wireless technology is one of the enablers of the Internet of Things. It allows constrained devices to communicate with a satisfactory data rate, payload size and distance range, all with reduced energy consumption. To provide IoT devices with a global Internet identity, 6LoWPAN defines the IPv6 adaptation to communicate over IEEE802.15.4. However, this integration still needs additional protocols to support other IoT requirements, which makes the IP stack in IoT devices more complex and therefore shows the limitations of the IP model to support the needs of future Internet. Named Data Networking represents an alternative that can natively support IoT constraints including mobility, security and human readable data names. This paper is a synthesis of an ongoing work that investigates the integration of NDN with IEEE802.15.4 for constrained IoT devices. The proposed design has been implemented in a real-world smart agriculture scenario, and evaluated by simulation focusing on energy consumption and network overhead in comparison to IP-based protocols

ICN as Network Infrastructure for Multi-Sensory Devices: Local Domain Service Discovery for ICN-based IoT Environments

Information Centric Networking (ICN) is an emerging research topic aiming at shifting the Internet from its current host-centric paradigm towards an approach centred around content, which enables the direct retrieval of information objects in a secure, reliable, scalable, and efficient way. The exposure of ICN to scenarios other than static content distribution is a growing research topic, promising to extend the impact of ICN to a broader scale. In this context, particular attention has been given to the application of ICN in Internet of Things (IoT) environments. The current paper, by focusing on local domain IoT scenarios, such as multi-sensory Machine to Machine environments, discusses the challenges that ICN, particularly Interest-based solutions, impose to service discovery. This work proposes a service discovery mechanism for such scenarios, relying on an alternative forwarding pipeline for supporting its core operations. The proposed mechanism is validated through a proof-of-concept prototype, developed on top of the Named Data Networking ICN architecture, with results showcasing the benefits of our solution for discovering services within a collision domain. © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New Yor

Efficiency of integration between sensor networks and clouds

Numerous wireless sensor networks (WSN) applications include monitoring and controlling various conditions in the environment, industry, healthcare, medicine, military affairs, agriculture, etc. The life of sensor nodes largely depends on the power supply type, communication ability, energy storage capacity and energy management mechanisms. The collection and transmission of sensor data streams from sensor nodes lead to the depletion of their energy. At the same time, the storage and processing of this data require significant hardware resources. Integration between clouds and sensor networks is an ideal solution to the limited computing power of sensor networks, data storage and processing. One of the main challenges facing systems engineers is to choose the appropriate protocol for integrating sensor data into the cloud structure, taking into account specific system requirements. This paper presents an experimental study on the effectiveness of integration between sensor networks and the cloud, implemented through three protocols HTTP, MQTT and MQTT-SN. A model for studying the integration of sensor network - Cloud with the communication models for integration - request-response and publish- subscribe, implemented with HTTP, MQTT and MQTT-SN. The influence of the number of transmitted data packets from physical sensors to the cloud on the transmitted data delay to the cloud, the CPU and memory load was studied. After evaluating the results of sensor network and cloud integration experiments, the MQTT protocol is the most efficient in terms of data rate and power consumption

IEEE Access Special Section Editorial: Energy Management in Buildings

Energy usage in buildings has become a critical concern globally, and with that, the concept of energy management in buildings has emerged to help tackle these challenges. The energy management system provides a new opportunity for the building's energy requirements, and is an essential method for energy service, i.e., energy saving, consumption,