31 research outputs found
Privacy-Aware Architectures for NFC and RFID Sensors in Healthcare Applications
World population and life expectancy have increased steadily in recent years, raising issues regarding access to medical treatments and related expenses. Through last-generation medical sensors, NFC (Near Field Communication) and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies can enable healthcare internet of things (H-IoT) systems to improve the quality of care while reducing costs. Moreover, the adoption of point-of-care (PoC) testing, performed whenever care is needed to return prompt feedback to the patient, can generate great synergy with NFC/RFID H-IoT systems. However, medical data are extremely sensitive and require careful management and storage to protect patients from malicious actors, so secure system architectures must be conceived for real scenarios. Existing studies do not analyze the security of raw data from the radiofrequency link to cloud-based sharing. Therefore, two novel cloud-based system architectures for data collected from NFC/RFID medical sensors are proposed in this paper. Privacy during data collection is ensured using a set of classical countermeasures selected based on the scientific literature. Then, data can be shared with the medical team using one of two architectures: in the first one, the medical system manages all data accesses, whereas in the second one, the patient defines the access policies. Comprehensive analysis of the H-IoT system can be useful for fostering research on the security of wearable wireless sensors. Moreover, the proposed architectures can be implemented for deploying and testing NFC/RFID-based healthcare applications, such as, for instance, domestic PoCs
On the Security of the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Protocol
Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) is the communications
protocol currently being rolled out as part of next generation air
transportation systems. As the heart of modern air traffic control, it will
play an essential role in the protection of two billion passengers per year,
besides being crucial to many other interest groups in aviation. The inherent
lack of security measures in the ADS-B protocol has long been a topic in both
the aviation circles and in the academic community. Due to recently published
proof-of-concept attacks, the topic is becoming ever more pressing, especially
with the deadline for mandatory implementation in most airspaces fast
approaching.
This survey first summarizes the attacks and problems that have been reported
in relation to ADS-B security. Thereafter, it surveys both the theoretical and
practical efforts which have been previously conducted concerning these issues,
including possible countermeasures. In addition, the survey seeks to go beyond
the current state of the art and gives a detailed assessment of security
measures which have been developed more generally for related wireless networks
such as sensor networks and vehicular ad hoc networks, including a taxonomy of
all considered approaches.Comment: Survey, 22 Pages, 21 Figure
RFID Technologies in Intelligent Medical Applications
This thesis examines RFID-technologies as a part of the development of intelligent medical applications. In this context the intelligence is interpreted as a property of a system that is more automatic, safe or efficient due to solutions achieved by information technology. RFID-technologies offer a wide range of possibilities for both containing and acquiring information. With the help of RFID-systems information such as the count, location, or status of hospital equipment can be obtained and monitored without the need for line of sight. In this thesis the task of applying RFID-technologies to achieve more intelligent medical applications is approached by researching the compatibility of all the known RFID-technologies at the moment of writing. However researches presented in this thesis are generally related to systems operating within the UHF-frequency band.
The thesis describes the main characteristics of the four main RFID-technology standards. As this research is concentrated on the solutions specialized in hospital environments, the compliances to such a setting are highlighted from the research papers undergone in this thesis. Functionalities that are considered to be useful in an intelligent hospital setting are presented in the literature study. Such functionalities include RFID-tags that are aware of their location and orientation, tags that carry user updatable data and even tags that update their data by themselves.
After revising the RFID-technologies, a case-related research conducted for this thesis is presented. The research analyzes and estimates the saturation times of the carbon dioxide absorbers that are used in anesthesia machines. The measurements are conducted by multiple tests where environmental variables are changed to different known values and the results are recorded. The goal of the research is to find out if it is possible to predict the absorber behavior, and whether saving the information needed or the prediction can be done directly to the absorbers themselves. To predict saturation, lifetime and usability of the absorbers a formula is calculated, and the formula is evaluated based on the values measured. As a conclusion UHF-RFID-technology is evaluated to be most compatible to be used in the prototype for the case. In this thesis the RFID-technologies are evaluated to be an economical and functional solution for the monitoring of absorber state, and the case is agreed to be a convenient solution to begin the transformation to intelligent hospitals. /Kir1
A Survey on Wireless Sensor Network Security
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently attracted a lot of interest in
the research community due their wide range of applications. Due to distributed
nature of these networks and their deployment in remote areas, these networks
are vulnerable to numerous security threats that can adversely affect their
proper functioning. This problem is more critical if the network is deployed
for some mission-critical applications such as in a tactical battlefield.
Random failure of nodes is also very likely in real-life deployment scenarios.
Due to resource constraints in the sensor nodes, traditional security
mechanisms with large overhead of computation and communication are infeasible
in WSNs. Security in sensor networks is, therefore, a particularly challenging
task. This paper discusses the current state of the art in security mechanisms
for WSNs. Various types of attacks are discussed and their countermeasures
presented. A brief discussion on the future direction of research in WSN
security is also included.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
A Prospective Look: Key Enabling Technologies, Applications and Open Research Topics in 6G Networks
The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks are envisaged to enable a plethora
of breakthrough advancements in wireless technologies, providing support of a
diverse set of services over a single platform. While the deployment of 5G
systems is scaling up globally, it is time to look ahead for beyond 5G systems.
This is driven by the emerging societal trends, calling for fully automated
systems and intelligent services supported by extended reality and haptics
communications. To accommodate the stringent requirements of their prospective
applications, which are data-driven and defined by extremely low-latency,
ultra-reliable, fast and seamless wireless connectivity, research initiatives
are currently focusing on a progressive roadmap towards the sixth generation
(6G) networks. In this article, we shed light on some of the major enabling
technologies for 6G, which are expected to revolutionize the fundamental
architectures of cellular networks and provide multiple homogeneous artificial
intelligence-empowered services, including distributed communications, control,
computing, sensing, and energy, from its core to its end nodes. Particularly,
this paper aims to answer several 6G framework related questions: What are the
driving forces for the development of 6G? How will the enabling technologies of
6G differ from those in 5G? What kind of applications and interactions will
they support which would not be supported by 5G? We address these questions by
presenting a profound study of the 6G vision and outlining five of its
disruptive technologies, i.e., terahertz communications, programmable
metasurfaces, drone-based communications, backscatter communications and
tactile internet, as well as their potential applications. Then, by leveraging
the state-of-the-art literature surveyed for each technology, we discuss their
requirements, key challenges, and open research problems
A prospective look: key enabling technologies, applications and open research topics in 6G networks
The fifth generation (5G) mobile networks are envisaged to enable a plethora of breakthrough advancements in wireless technologies, providing support of a diverse set of services over a single platform. While the deployment of 5G systems is scaling up globally, it is time to look ahead for beyond 5G systems. This is mainly driven by the emerging societal trends, calling for fully automated systems and intelligent services supported by extended reality and haptics communications. To accommodate the stringent requirements of their prospective applications, which are data-driven and defined by extremely low-latency, ultra-reliable, fast and seamless wireless connectivity, research initiatives are currently focusing on a progressive roadmap towards the sixth generation (6G) networks, which are expected to bring transformative changes to this premise. In this article, we shed light on some of the major enabling technologies for 6G, which are expected to revolutionize the fundamental architectures of cellular networks and provide multiple homogeneous artificial intelligence-empowered services, including distributed communications, control, computing, sensing, and energy, from its core to its end nodes. In particular, the present paper aims to answer several 6G framework related questions: What are the driving forces for the development of 6G? How will the enabling technologies of 6G differ from those in 5G? What kind of applications and interactions will they support which would not be supported by 5G? We address these questions by presenting a comprehensive study of the 6G vision and outlining seven of its disruptive technologies, i.e., mmWave communications, terahertz communications, optical wireless communications, programmable metasurfaces, drone-based communications, backscatter communications and tactile internet, as well as their potential applications. Then, by leveraging the state-of-the-art literature surveyed for each technology, we discuss the associated requirements, key challenges, and open research problems. These discussions are thereafter used to open up the horizon for future research directions
Deteção de intrusões de rede baseada em anomalias
Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Eletrónica Industrial e ComputadoresAo longo dos últimos anos, a segurança de hardware e software tornou-se uma grande preocupação. À medida
que a complexidade dos sistemas aumenta, as suas vulnerabilidades a sofisticadas técnicas de ataque têm
proporcionalmente escalado. Frequentemente o problema reside na heterogenidade de dispositivos conectados ao
veÃculo, tornando difÃcil a convergência da monitorização de todos os protocolos num único produto de segurança.
Por esse motivo, o mercado requer ferramentas mais avançadas para a monitorizar ambientes crÃticos à vida
humana, tais como os nossos automóveis.
Considerando que existem várias formas de interagir com os sistemas de entretenimento do automóvel como
o Bluetooth, o Wi-fi ou CDs multimédia, a necessidade de auditar as suas interfaces tornou-se uma prioridade,
uma vez que elas representam um sério meio de aceeso à rede interna do carro. Atualmente, os mecanismos de
segurança de um carro focam-se na monitotização da rede CAN, deixando para trás as tecnologias referidas e não
contemplando os sistemas não crÃticos. Como exemplo disso, o Bluetooth traz desafios diferentes da rede CAN,
uma vez que interage diretamente com o utilizador e está exposto a ataques externos.
Uma abordagem alternativa para tornar o automóvel num sistema mais robusto é manter sob supervisão as
comunicações que com este são estabelecidas. Ao implementar uma detecção de intrusão baseada em anomalias,
esta dissertação visa analisar o protocolo Bluetooth no sentido de identificar interações anormais que possam
alertar para uma situação fora dos padrões de utilização. Em última análise, este produto de software embebido
incorpora uma grande margem de auto-aprendizagem, que é vital para enfrentar quaisquer ameaças desconhecidas
e aumentar os nÃveis de segurança globais. Ao longo deste documento, apresentamos o estudo do problema seguido
de uma metodologia alternativa que implementa um algoritmo baseado numa LSTM para prever a sequência de
comandos HCI correspondentes a tráfego Bluetooth normal. Os resultados mostram a forma como esta abordagem
pode impactar a deteção de intrusões nestes ambientes ao demonstrar uma grande capacidade para identificar padrões anómalos no conjunto de dados considerado.In the last few years, hardware and software security have become a major concern. As the systems’ complexity
increases, its vulnerabilities to several sophisticated attack techniques have escalated likewise. Quite often, the
problem lies in the heterogeneity of the devices connected to the vehicle, making it difficult to converge the monitoring
systems of all existing protocols into one security product. Thereby, the market requires more refined tools to monitor
life-risky environments such as personal vehicles.
Considering that there are several ways to interact with the car’s infotainment system, such as Wi-fi, Bluetooth,
or CD player, the need to audit these interfaces has become a priority as they represent a serious channel to reach
the internal car network. Nowadays, security in car networks focuses on CAN bus monitoring, leaving behind the
aforementioned technologies and not contemplating other non-critical systems. As an example of these concerns,
Bluetooth brings different challenges compared to CAN as it interacts directly with the user, being exposed to external
attacks.
An alternative approach to converting modern vehicles and their set of computers into more robust systems
is to keep track of established communications with them. By enforcing anomaly-based intrusion detection this
dissertation aims to analyze the Bluetooth protocol to identify abnormal user interactions that may alert for a non conforming pattern. Ultimately, such embedded software product incorporates a self-learning edge, which is vital to
face newly developed threats and increasing global security levels. Throughout this document, we present the study
case followed by an alternative methodology that implements an LSTM based algorithm to predict a sequence of
HCI commands corresponding to normal Bluetooth traffic. The results show how this approach can impact intrusion
detection in such environments by expressing a high capability of identifying abnormal patterns in the considered
data