Survey and Systematization of Secure Device Pairing

Secure Device Pairing (SDP) schemes have been developed to facilitate secure communications among smart devices, both personal mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Comparison and assessment of SDP schemes is troublesome, because each scheme makes different assumptions about out-of-band channels and adversary models, and are driven by their particular use-cases. A conceptual model that facilitates meaningful comparison among SDP schemes is missing. We provide such a model. In this article, we survey and analyze a wide range of SDP schemes that are described in the literature, including a number that have been adopted as standards. A system model and consistent terminology for SDP schemes are built on the foundation of this survey, which are then used to classify existing SDP schemes into a taxonomy that, for the first time, enables their meaningful comparison and analysis.The existing SDP schemes are analyzed using this model, revealing common systemic security weaknesses among the surveyed SDP schemes that should become priority areas for future SDP research, such as improving the integration of privacy requirements into the design of SDP schemes. Our results allow SDP scheme designers to create schemes that are more easily comparable with one another, and to assist the prevention of persisting the weaknesses common to the current generation of SDP schemes.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, accepted at IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 2017 (Volume: PP, Issue: 99

A Key Establishment Scheme for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks Using Post-Deployment Knowledge

Establishment of pairwise keys between sensor nodes in a sensor network is a difficult problem due to resource limitations of sensor nodes as well as vulnerability to physical captures of sensor nodes by the enemy. Public-key cryptosystems are not much suited for most resource-constrained sensor networks. Recently, elliptic curve cryptographic techniques show that public key cryptosystem is also feasible for resource-constrained sensor networks. However, most researchers accept that the symmetric key cryptosystems are viable options for resource-constrained sensor networks. In this paper, we first develop a basic principle to address the key pre-distribution problem in mobile sensor networks. Then, using this developed basic principle, we propose a scheme which takes the advantage of the post-deployment knowledge. Our scheme is a modified version of the key prioritization technique proposed by Liu and Ning. Our improved scheme provides reasonable network connectivity and security. Moreover, the proposed scheme works for any deployment topology.Comment: Published in International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC) Vol.3, No.4, July 201

Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey

This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols, user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed, use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are some text overlaps with the previous submissio

Dynamic key ring update mechanism for mobile wireless sensor networks

Key distribution is an important issue to provide security in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Many of the key pre-distribution schemes proposed for static WSNs perform poorly when they are applied to Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (MWSNs). In this paper, we propose Dynamic Key Ring Update (DKRU) mechanism for MWSNs. The aim of DKRU mechanism is to enable sensor nodes to update their key rings periodically during movement, by observing the frequent keys in their neighbors. Our mechanism can be used together with different key pre-distribution schemes and it helps to increase the performance of them. For the performance evaluation basis, we used our mechanism together with a location based key pre-distribution scheme. Our results show that DKRU mechanism increases the local and global connectivity when it is applied to MWSNs. Moreover, our mechanism does not cause a significant degradation in network resiliency

Spectrum sharing security and attacks in CRNs: a review

Cognitive Radio plays a major part in communication technology by resolving the shortage of the spectrum through usage of dynamic spectrum access and artificial intelligence characteristics. The element of spectrum sharing in cognitive radio is a fundament al approach in utilising free channels. Cooperatively communicating cognitive radio devices use the common control channel of the cognitive radio medium access control to achieve spectrum sharing. Thus, the common control channel and consequently spectrum sharing security are vital to ensuring security in the subsequent data communication among cognitive radio nodes. In addition to well known security problems in wireless networks, cognitive radio networks introduce new classes of security threats and challenges, such as licensed user emulation attacks in spectrum sensing and misbehaviours in the common control channel transactions, which degrade the overall network operation and performance. This review paper briefly presents the known threats and attacks in wireless networks before it looks into the concept of cognitive radio and its main functionality. The paper then mainly focuses on spectrum sharing security and its related challenges. Since spectrum sharing is enabled through usage of the common control channel, more attention is paid to the security of the common control channel by looking into its security threats as well as protection and detection mechanisms. Finally, the pros and cons as well as the comparisons of different CR - specific security mechanisms are presented with some open research issues and challenges