Security protocols suite for machine-to-machine systems

Nowadays, the great diffusion of advanced devices, such as smart-phones, has shown that there is a growing trend to rely on new technologies to generate and/or support progress; the society is clearly ready to trust on next-generation communication systems to face today’s concerns on economic and social fields. The reason for this sociological change is represented by the fact that the technologies have been open to all users, even if the latter do not necessarily have a specific knowledge in this field, and therefore the introduction of new user-friendly applications has now appeared as a business opportunity and a key factor to increase the general cohesion among all citizens. Within the actors of this technological evolution, wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) networks are becoming of great importance. These wireless networks are made up of interconnected low-power devices that are able to provide a great variety of services with little or even no user intervention. Examples of these services can be fleet management, fire detection, utilities consumption (water and energy distribution, etc.) or patients monitoring. However, since any arising technology goes together with its security threats, which have to be faced, further studies are necessary to secure wireless M2M technology. In this context, main threats are those related to attacks to the services availability and to the privacy of both the subscribers’ and the services providers’ data. Taking into account the often limited resources of the M2M devices at the hardware level, ensuring the availability and privacy requirements in the range of M2M applications while minimizing the waste of valuable resources is even more challenging. Based on the above facts, this Ph. D. thesis is aimed at providing efficient security solutions for wireless M2M networks that effectively reduce energy consumption of the network while not affecting the overall security services of the system. With this goal, we first propose a coherent taxonomy of M2M network that allows us to identify which security topics deserve special attention and which entities or specific services are particularly threatened. Second, we define an efficient, secure-data aggregation scheme that is able to increase the network lifetime by optimizing the energy consumption of the devices. Third, we propose a novel physical authenticator or frame checker that minimizes the communication costs in wireless channels and that successfully faces exhaustion attacks. Fourth, we study specific aspects of typical key management schemes to provide a novel protocol which ensures the distribution of secret keys for all the cryptographic methods used in this system. Fifth, we describe the collaboration with the WAVE2M community in order to define a proper frame format actually able to support the necessary security services, including the ones that we have already proposed; WAVE2M was funded to promote the global use of an emerging wireless communication technology for ultra-low and long-range services. And finally sixth, we provide with an accurate analysis of privacy solutions that actually fit M2M-networks services’ requirements. All the analyses along this thesis are corroborated by simulations that confirm significant improvements in terms of efficiency while supporting the necessary security requirements for M2M networks

Secure and Private Data Aggregation in WSN

Data aggregation is an important efficiency mechanism for large scale, resource constrained networks such as wireless sensor networks (WSN). Security and privacy are central for many data aggregation applications: (1) entities make decisions based on the results of the data aggregation, so the entities need to be assured that the aggregation process and in particular the aggregate data they receive has not been corrupted (i.e., verify the integrity of the aggregation); (2) If the aggregation application has been attacked, then the attack must be handled efficiently; (3) the privacy requirements of the sensor network must be preserved. The nature of both wireless sensor networks and data aggregation make it particularly challenging to provide the desired security and privacy requirements: (1) sensors in WSN can be easily compromised and subsequently corrupted by an adversary since they are unmonitored and have little physical security; (2) a malicious aggregator node at the root of an aggregation subtree can corrupt not just its own value but also that of all the nodes in its entire aggregation subtree; (3) since sensors have limited resourced, it is crucial to achieve the security objectives while adopting only cheap symmetric-key based operations and minimizing communication cost. In this thesis, we first address the problem of efficient handling of adversarial attacks on data aggregation applications in WSN. We propose and analyze a detection and identification solution, presenting a precise cost-based characterization when in-network data aggregation retains its assumed benefits under persistent attacks. Second, we address the issue of data privacy in WSN in the context of data aggregation. We introduce and analyze the problem of privacy-preserving integrity-assured data aggregation (PIA) and show that there is an inherent tension between preservation of data privacy and secure data aggregation. Additionally, we look at the problem of PIA in publish-subscribe networks when there are multiple, collaborative yet competing subscribers

Dynamic modeling and ICT integration for Demand Side Management (DSM) of systems for heating, cooling and related electrical loads

Nowadays the energy usage is increasing the urban areas due to lifestyle changes and an increase in the population of cities. Consumers care more about their comfort level which affects energy usage. Improvement of energy efficiency of cooling and heating systems of buildings is a suitable approach for energy consumption reduction of urban areas. In existing buildings, it is difficult to intervene on the building envelope. Therefore, an alternative solution is using a smart controller for heating and cooling systems of buildings to make the total system more efficient. In the current work, first, a general energy model is designed and developed to be implementable to different kinds of buildings. The model contains different elements including boiler, chiller, fan coil, radiator, pipe, heat exchanger, air heat exchanger, zone, mixer, solver, and bridge. Then, the model is implemented on the case study building based on the heating and cooling plants of that. The model is validated in terms of indoor temperature in heating and cooling systems and $CO_{2}$ concentration. Next, two different approaches are studied, one for an islanded building, and another for the connected buildings. For the islanded building, it is planned to just keep the thermal comfort and decrease the energy consumption. Therefore, in this case, the load shape in a neighborhood will not be considered. Different scenarios are designed to be compared in terms of energy consumption and thermal comfort, including the basic, the indoor temperature, the weather prediction, and the smart scenarios. The other approach, which is the modeling through a neighborhood, helps to decrease energy consumption and improve the power load shape in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the thermal comfort will be kept in a suitable range. Different scenarios are designed to be compared in terms of energy consumption, power load shape, and thermal comfort, including the basic connected, the smart connected scenarios. As the results show, implementing smart solutions in both approaches, islanded and connected, can improve the energy consumptions of the existing buildings. For energy consumption of islanded approach in the heating system, the smart scenario is the most effective in terms of energy consumption, which can reduce the energy consumption compared to the basic scenario about 10.7%. In that of the cooling system, the smart scenario can save more energy compared to the other scenarios, which is 9.7%, compared to the basic scenario. In the connected approach, using a smart controller interacting through the blockchain decreases the PAR by 15% compared to that of basic, and it decreases total energy consumption by 11%. The smart scenario brings 7% more thermal comfort compared to the basic scenario

The EU Cohesion policy and healthy national development: Management and Promotion in Ukraine

Монографія присвячена дослідженню сутності принципів реалізації політики згуртованості Європейського Союзу. Авторами проведено аналіз економічних, екологічних та соціальних аспектів інтеграції досвіду ЄС у державну політику України. У монографії узагальнено підходи до відновлення країни та здорового розвитку. Окрему увагу приділено питанням управління системою охорони здоров’я, тенденціям та перспективам досягнення стану стійкості системи медико-соціального забезпечення населення в умовах впливу COVID-19 на національну економіку. Узагальнено досвід використання маркетингових та інноваційних технологій у контексті здорового національного розвитку.Монография посвящена исследованию сущности принципов реализации политики сплоченности Европейского Союза. Авторами проведен анализ экономических, экологических и социальных аспектов интеграции опыта ЕС в государственную политику Украины. В монографии обобщены подходы к восстановлению и здоровому развитию. Отдельное внимание уделено вопросам управления здравоохранением, тенденциям и перспективам достижения состояния устойчивости системы медико-социального обеспечения населения в условиях влияния COVID-19 на национальную экономику. Обобщен опыт использования маркетинговых и инновационных технологий в контексте здорового национального развития.The monograph focused on the specifics of the principles of the EU Cohesion Policy implementation. The authors conducted an analysis of the economic, ecological and social aspects of the integration of the EU experience into the state policy of Ukraine. The monograph summarizes approaches to the restoration of the country and healthy development. Particular attention is paid to the issues of health care system management, the trends and prospects of achieving the state of resilience of the medical and social provision system of the population in the context of the impact of COVID-19 on the national economy. The experience of using marketing and innovative technologies in the context of healthy national development is summarized. The monograph is generally intended for government officials, entrepreneurs, researchers, graduate students, students of economic, medical, and other specialties

Advances in Information Security and Privacy

With the recent pandemic emergency, many people are spending their days in smart working and have increased their use of digital resources for both work and entertainment. The result is that the amount of digital information handled online is dramatically increased, and we can observe a significant increase in the number of attacks, breaches, and hacks. This Special Issue aims to establish the state of the art in protecting information by mitigating information risks. This objective is reached by presenting both surveys on specific topics and original approaches and solutions to specific problems. In total, 16 papers have been published in this Special Issue

African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation

This open access book discusses current thinking and presents the main issues and challenges associated with climate change in Africa. It introduces evidences from studies and projects which show how climate change adaptation is being - and may continue to be successfully implemented in African countries. Thanks to its scope and wide range of themes surrounding climate change, the ambition is that this book will be a lead publication on the topic, which may be regularly updated and hence capture further works. Climate change is a major global challenge. However, some geographical regions are more severly affected than others. One of these regions is the African continent. Due to a combination of unfavourable socio-economic and meteorological conditions, African countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. The recently released IPCC special report "Global Warming of 1.5º C" outlines the fact that keeping global warming by the level of 1.5º C is possible, but also suggested that an increase by 2º C could lead to crises with crops (agriculture fed by rain could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020) and livestock production, could damage water supplies and pose an additonal threat to coastal areas. The 5th Assessment Report produced by IPCC predicts that wheat may disappear from Africa by 2080, and that maize— a staple—will fall significantly in southern Africa. Also, arid and semi-arid lands are likely to increase by up to 8%, with severe ramifications for livelihoods, poverty eradication and meeting the SDGs. Pursuing appropriate adaptation strategies is thus vital, in order to address the current and future challenges posed by a changing climate. It is against this background that the "African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation" is being published. It contains papers prepared by scholars, representatives from social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies, undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects in Africa, and working with communities across the African continent. Encompassing over 100 contribtions from across Africa, it is the most comprehensive publication on climate change adaptation in Africa ever produced

Shortest Route at Dynamic Location with Node Combination-Dijkstra Algorithm

Abstract— Online transportation has become a basic requirement of the general public in support of all activities to go to work, school or vacation to the sights. Public transportation services compete to provide the best service so that consumers feel comfortable using the services offered, so that all activities are noticed, one of them is the search for the shortest route in picking the buyer or delivering to the destination. Node Combination method can minimize memory usage and this methode is more optimal when compared to A* and Ant Colony in the shortest route search like Dijkstra algorithm, but can’t store the history node that has been passed. Therefore, using node combination algorithm is very good in searching the shortest distance is not the shortest route. This paper is structured to modify the node combination algorithm to solve the problem of finding the shortest route at the dynamic location obtained from the transport fleet by displaying the nodes that have the shortest distance and will be implemented in the geographic information system in the form of map to facilitate the use of the system. Keywords— Shortest Path, Algorithm Dijkstra, Node Combination, Dynamic Location (key words