Lightweight authentication for recovery in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) suffer from a wide range of security attacks due to their limited processing and energy capabilities. Their use in numerous mission critical applications, however, requires that fast recovery from such attacks be achieved. Much research has been completed on detection of security attacks, while very little attention has been paid to recovery from an attack. In this paper, we propose a novel, lightweight authentication protocol that can secure network and node recovery operations such as re-clustering and reprogramming. Our protocol is based on hash functions and we compare the performance of two well-known lightweight hash functions, SHA-1 and Rabin. We demonstrate that our authentication protocol can be implemented efficiently on a sensor network test-bed with TelosB motes. Further, our experimental results show that our protocol is efficient both in terms of computational overhead and execution times which makes it suitable for low resourced sensor devices.<br /

Factors Impacting Key Management Effectiveness in Secured Wireless Networks

The use of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) offers a cryptographic solution that can overcome many, but not all, of the MANET security problems. One of the most critical aspects of a PKI system is how well it implements Key Management. Key Management deals with key generation, key storage, key distribution, key updating, key revocation, and certificate service in accordance with security policies over the lifecycle of the cryptography. The approach supported by traditional PKI works well in fixed wired networks, but it may not appropriate for MANET due to the lack of fixed infrastructure to support the PKI. This research seeks to identify best practices in securing networks which may be applied to new network architectures

Achieving better privacy protection in wireless sensor networks using trusted computing

A*STAR projec

A Hybrid Metaheuristic Algorithm for Stop Point Selection in Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Network

A wireless rechargeable sensor network (WRSN) enables charging of rechargeable sensor nodes (RSN) wirelessly through a mobile charging vehicle (MCV). Most existing works choose the MCV’s stop point (SP) at random, the cluster’s center, or the cluster head position, all without exploring the demand from RSNs. It results in a long charging delay, a low charging throughput, frequent MCV trips, and more dead nodes. To overcome these issues, this paper proposes a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm for stop point selection (HMA-SPS) that combines the techniques of the dragonfly algorithm (DA), firefly algorithm (FA), and gray wolf optimization (GWO) algorithms. Using FA and GWO techniques, DA predicts an ideal SP using the run-time metrics of RSNs, such as energy, delay, distance, and trust factors. The simulated results demonstrate faster convergence with low delay and highlight that more RSNs can be recharged with fewer MCV visits, further enhancing energy utilization, throughput, network lifetime, and trust factor

The Applications of the Internet of things in the Medical Field

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm promises to make “things” include a more generic set of entities such as smart devices, sensors, human beings, and any other IoT objects to be accessible at anytime and anywhere. IoT varies widely in its applications, and one of its most beneficial uses is in the medical field. However, the large attack surface and vulnerabilities of IoT systems needs to be secured and protected. Security is a requirement for IoT systems in the medical field where the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) applies. This work investigates various applications of IoT in healthcare and focuses on the security aspects of the two internet of medical things (IoMT) devices: the LifeWatch Mobile Cardiac Telemetry 3 Lead (MCT3L), and the remote patient monitoring system of the telehealth provider Vivify Health, as well as their implementations

Green communication approach for the smart city using renewable energy systems

A smart city is an evolving Internet of Things (IoT) technique that links different digital gadgets via a network, offering several new services to the manufacturing and medical field to commerce. A smart city is an omnipresent and fundamental change that has altered the whole environment using Information Communication Technology (ICT) and sensor-enabled IoT gadgets. Renewable energy storage, the solar, wind, and distributed resources can be better integrated into the grid. The leading theory in the digital domain for improved and broad use of all the situations with high digital media accessibility (i.e., video, sound, words, and pictures), nevertheless it is challenging to talk freely about such small appliances because of resource constraints (starving power and battery capacity), and large quantities of the information. The green communication approach for the smart city (GCA-SC) is proposed in this article. Thus, using saved video streams to solve these difficulties is recommended by Hybrid Adaptation and Power Algorithms and Delay-tolerant Streamed Algorithms. A new architecture is similarly proposed for the smart city network. Empirical findings such as power drainage, battery capacity, latency, and bandwidth are acquired and evaluated. It was reached that, with less effort than Baseline, GCA-SC optimises energy drainage, the battery capacity, variance, power delivery ratio of the IoT compatible gadgets in the smart city environment. The simulation analysis of the proposed GCA-SC method enhances the packet delivery ratio of 39% and throughput of 99 kbps. It reduces the delay by 2.5 s and the standard deviation by −0.9 s.publishedVersio

Efficient Authentication, Node Clone Detection, and Secure Data Aggregation for Sensor Networks

Sensor networks are innovative wireless networks consisting of a large number of low-cost, resource-constrained sensor nodes that collect, process, and transmit data in a distributed and collaborative way. There are numerous applications for wireless sensor networks, and security is vital for many of them. However, sensor nodes suffer from many constraints, including low computation capability, small memory, limited energy resources, susceptibility to physical capture, and the lack of infrastructure, all of which impose formidable security challenges and call for innovative approaches. In this thesis, we present our research results on three important aspects of securing sensor networks: lightweight entity authentication, distributed node clone detection, and secure data aggregation. As the technical core of our lightweight authentication proposals, a special type of circulant matrix named circulant-P2 matrix is introduced. We prove the linear independence of matrix vectors, present efficient algorithms on matrix operations, and explore other important properties. By combining circulant-P2 matrix with the learning parity with noise problem, we develop two one-way authentication protocols: the innovative LCMQ protocol, which is provably secure against all probabilistic polynomial-time attacks and provides remarkable performance on almost all metrics except one mild requirement for the verifier's computational capacity, and the HB$^C$ protocol, which utilizes the conventional HB-like authentication structure to preserve the bit-operation only computation requirement for both participants and consumes less key storage than previous HB-like protocols without sacrificing other performance. Moreover, two enhancement mechanisms are provided to protect the HB-like protocols from known attacks and to improve performance. For both protocols, practical parameters for different security levels are recommended. In addition, we build a framework to extend enhanced HB-like protocols to mutual authentication in a communication-efficient fashion. Node clone attack, that is, the attempt by adversaries to add one or more nodes to the network by cloning captured nodes, imposes a severe threat to wireless sensor networks. To cope with it, we propose two distributed detection protocols with difference tradeoffs on network conditions and performance. The first one is based on distributed hash table, by which a fully decentralized, key-based caching and checking system is constructed to deterministically catch cloned nodes in general sensor networks. The protocol performance of efficient storage consumption and high security level is theoretically deducted through a probability model, and the resulting equations, with necessary adjustments for real application, are supported by the simulations. The other is the randomly directed exploration protocol, which presents notable communication performance and minimal storage consumption by an elegant probabilistic directed forwarding technique along with random initial direction and border determination. The extensive experimental results uphold the protocol design and show its efficiency on communication overhead and satisfactory detection probability. Data aggregation is an inherent requirement for many sensor network applications, but designing secure mechanisms for data aggregation is very challenging because the aggregation nature that requires intermediate nodes to process and change messages, and the security objective to prevent malicious manipulation, conflict with each other to a great extent. To fulfill different challenges of secure data aggregation, we present two types of approaches. The first is to provide cryptographic integrity mechanisms for general data aggregation. Based on recent developments of homomorphic primitives, we propose three integrity schemes: a concrete homomorphic MAC construction, homomorphic hash plus aggregate MAC, and homomorphic hash with identity-based aggregate signature, which provide different tradeoffs on security assumption, communication payload, and computation cost. The other is a substantial data aggregation scheme that is suitable for a specific and popular class of aggregation applications, embedded with built-in security techniques that effectively defeat outside and inside attacks. Its foundation is a new data structure---secure Bloom filter, which combines HMAC with Bloom filter. The secure Bloom filter is naturally compatible with aggregation and has reliable security properties. We systematically analyze the scheme's performance and run extensive simulations on different network scenarios for evaluation. The simulation results demonstrate that the scheme presents good performance on security, communication cost, and balance

An architecture framework for enhanced wireless sensor network security

This thesis develops an architectural framework to enhance the security of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and provides the implementation proof through different security countermeasures, which can be used to establish secure WSNs, in a distributed and self-healing manner. Wireless Sensors are used to monitor and control environmental properties such as sound, acceleration, vibration, air pollutants, and temperature. Due to their limited resources in computation capability, memory and energy, their security schemes are susceptible to many kinds of security vulnerabilities. This thesis investigated all possible network attacks on WSNs and at the time of writing, 19 different types of attacks were identified, all of which are discussed including exposures to the attacks, and the impact of those attacks. The author then utilises this work to examine the ZigBee series, which are the new generation of wireless sensor network products with built-in layered security achieved by secure messaging using symmetric cryptography. However, the author was able to uniquely identify several security weaknesses in ZigBee by examining its protocol and launching the possible attacks. It was found that ZigBee is vulnerable to the following attacks, namely: eavesdropping, replay attack, physical tampering and Denial of Services (DoS). The author then provides solutions to improve the ZigBee security through its security schema, including an end-to-end WSN security framework, architecture design and sensor configuration, that can withstand all types of attacks on the WSN and mitigate ZigBee’s WSN security vulnerabilities

A PEFKS- and CP-ABE-Based Distributed Security Scheme in Interest-Centric Opportunistic Networks

Security is a crucial issue in distributed applications of multihop wireless opportunistic network due to the features of exposed on the fly communication, relaxed end-to-end connectivity, and vague destinations literately. In this paper, we focus on problems of user privacy leakage and end-to-end confidentiality invasion in content-based or interest-centric wireless opportunistic network. And we propose a public-encryption-with-fuzzy-keyword-search- (PEFKS-) and ciphertext-policy-attribute-based-encryption- (CP-ABE-) based distributed security scheme by refining and compromising two-pairing-based encryption, searchable encryption, and attribute-based encryption. Our scheme enables opportunistic forwarding according to fuzzy interests preserving full privacy of users and ensures end-to-end confidentiality with a fine-grained access control strategy in an interest-centric scenario of large-scale wireless opportunistic networks. Finally, we analyze and evaluate the scheme in terms of security and performance