47 research outputs found

    Energy-Sustainable IoT Connectivity: Vision, Technological Enablers, Challenges, and Future Directions

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    Technology solutions must effectively balance economic growth, social equity, and environmental integrity to achieve a sustainable society. Notably, although the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm constitutes a key sustainability enabler, critical issues such as the increasing maintenance operations, energy consumption, and manufacturing/disposal of IoT devices have long-term negative economic, societal, and environmental impacts and must be efficiently addressed. This calls for self-sustainable IoT ecosystems requiring minimal external resources and intervention, effectively utilizing renewable energy sources, and recycling materials whenever possible, thus encompassing energy sustainability. In this work, we focus on energy-sustainable IoT during the operation phase, although our discussions sometimes extend to other sustainability aspects and IoT lifecycle phases. Specifically, we provide a fresh look at energy-sustainable IoT and identify energy provision, transfer, and energy efficiency as the three main energy-related processes whose harmonious coexistence pushes toward realizing self-sustainable IoT systems. Their main related technologies, recent advances, challenges, and research directions are also discussed. Moreover, we overview relevant performance metrics to assess the energy-sustainability potential of a certain technique, technology, device, or network and list some target values for the next generation of wireless systems. Overall, this paper offers insights that are valuable for advancing sustainability goals for present and future generations.Comment: 25 figures, 12 tables, submitted to IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Societ

    Security Technologies and Methods for Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence, Detection and Mitigation

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    The rapid growth of the Internet interconnectivity and complexity of communication systems has led us to a significant growth of cyberattacks globally often with severe and disastrous consequences. The swift development of more innovative and effective (cyber)security solutions and approaches are vital which can detect, mitigate and prevent from these serious consequences. Cybersecurity is gaining momentum and is scaling up in very many areas. This book builds on the experience of the Cyber-Trust EU project’s methods, use cases, technology development, testing and validation and extends into a broader science, lead IT industry market and applied research with practical cases. It offers new perspectives on advanced (cyber) security innovation (eco) systems covering key different perspectives. The book provides insights on new security technologies and methods for advanced cyber threat intelligence, detection and mitigation. We cover topics such as cyber-security and AI, cyber-threat intelligence, digital forensics, moving target defense, intrusion detection systems, post-quantum security, privacy and data protection, security visualization, smart contracts security, software security, blockchain, security architectures, system and data integrity, trust management systems, distributed systems security, dynamic risk management, privacy and ethics

    Advances in Information Security and Privacy

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    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

    Secure Physical Design

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    An integrated circuit is subject to a number of attacks including information leakage, side-channel attacks, fault-injection, malicious change, reverse engineering, and piracy. Majority of these attacks take advantage of physical placement and routing of cells and interconnects. Several measures have already been proposed to deal with security issues of the high level functional design and logic synthesis. However, to ensure end-to-end trustworthy IC design flow, it is necessary to have security sign-off during physical design flow. This paper presents a secure physical design roadmap to enable end-to-end trustworthy IC design flow. The paper also discusses utilization of AI/ML to establish security at the layout level. Major research challenges in obtaining a secure physical design are also discussed

    Practical Lightweight Security: Physical Unclonable Functions and the Internet of Things

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    In this work, we examine whether Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) can act as lightweight security mechanisms for practical applications in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT). In order to do so, we first discuss what PUFs are, and note that memory-based PUFs seem to fit the best to the framework of the IoT. Then, we consider a number of relevant memory-based PUF designs and their properties, and evaluate their ability to provide security in nominal and adverse conditions. Finally, we present and assess a number of practical PUF-based security protocols for IoT devices and networks, in order to confirm that memory-based PUFs can indeed constitute adequate security mechanisms for the IoT, in a practical and lightweight fashion. More specifically, we first consider what may constitute a PUF, and we redefine PUFs as inanimate physical objects whose characteristics can be exploited in order to obtain a behaviour similar to a highly distinguishable (i.e., “(quite) unique”) mathematical function. We note that PUFs share many characteristics with biometrics, with the main difference being that PUFs are based on the characteristics of inanimate objects, while biometrics are based on the characteristics of humans and other living creatures. We also note that it cannot really be proven that PUFs are unique per instance, but they should be considered to be so, insofar as (human) biometrics are also considered to be unique per instance. We, then, proceed to discuss the role of PUFs as security mechanisms for the IoT, and we determine that memory-based PUFs are particularly suited for this function. We observe that the IoT nowadays consists of heterogeneous devices connected over diverse networks, which include both high-end and resource-constrained devices. Therefore, it is essential that a security solution for the IoT is not only effective, but also highly scalable, flexible, lightweight, and cost-efficient, in order to be considered as practical. To this end, we note that PUFs have been proposed as security mechanisms for the IoT in the related work, but the practicality of the relevant security mechanisms has not been sufficiently studied. We, therefore, examine a number of memory-based PUFs that are implemented using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components, and assess their potential to serve as acceptable security mechanisms in the context of the IoT, not only in terms of effectiveness and cost, but also under both nominal and adverse conditions, such as ambient temperature and supply voltage variations, as well as in the presence of (ionising) radiation. In this way, we can determine whether memory-based PUFs are truly suitable to be used in the various application areas of the IoT, which may even involve particularly adverse environments, e.g., in IoT applications involving space modules and operations. Finally, we also explore the potential of memory-based PUFs to serve as adequate security mechanisms for the IoT in practice, by presenting and analysing a number of cryptographic protocols based on these PUFs. In particular, we study how memory-based PUFs can be used for key generation, as well as device identification, and authentication, their role as security mechanisms for current and next-generation IoT devices and networks, and their potential for applications in the space segment of the IoT and in other adverse environments. Additionally, this work also discusses how memory-based PUFs can be utilised for the implementation of lightweight reconfigurable PUFs that allow for advanced security applications. In this way, we are able to confirm that memory-based PUFs can indeed provide flexible, scalable, and efficient security solutions for the IoT, in a practical, lightweight, and inexpensive manner

    Harnessing Knowledge, Innovation and Competence in Engineering of Mission Critical Systems

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    This book explores the critical role of acquisition, application, enhancement, and management of knowledge and human competence in the context of the largely digital and data/information dominated modern world. Whilst humanity owes much of its achievements to the distinct capability to learn from observation, analyse data, gain insights, and perceive beyond original realities, the systematic treatment of knowledge as a core capability and driver of success has largely remained the forte of pedagogy. In an increasingly intertwined global community faced with existential challenges and risks, the significance of knowledge creation, innovation, and systematic understanding and treatment of human competence is likely to be humanity's greatest weapon against adversity. This book was conceived to inform the decision makers and practitioners about the best practice pertinent to many disciplines and sectors. The chapters fall into three broad categories to guide the readers to gain insight from generic fundamentals to discipline-specific case studies and of the latest practice in knowledge and competence management

    Scheduling Tasks on Intermittently-Powered Real-Time Systems

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    Batteryless systems go through sporadic power on and off phases due to intermittently available energy; thus, they are called intermittent systems. Unfortunately, this intermittence in power supply hinders the timely execution of tasks and limits such devices’ potential in certain application domains, e.g., healthcare, live-stock tracking. Unlike prior work on time-aware intermittent systems that focuses on timekeeping [1, 2, 3] and discarding expired data [4], this dissertation concentrates on finishing task execution on time. I leverage the data processing and control layer of batteryless systems by developing frameworks that (1) integrate energy harvesting and real-time systems, (2) rethink machine learning algorithms for an energy-aware imprecise task scheduling framework, (3) develop scheduling algorithms that, along with deciding what to compute, answers when to compute and when to harvest, and (4) utilize distributed systems that collaboratively emulate a persistently powered system. Scheduling Framework for Intermittently Powered Computing Systems. Batteryless systems rely on sporadically available harvestable energy. For example, kinetic-powered motion detector sensors on the impalas can only harvest energy when the impalas are moving, which cannot be ascertained in advance. This uncertainty poses a unique real-time scheduling problem where existing real-time algorithms fail due to the interruption in execution time. This dissertation proposes a unified scheduling framework that includes both harvesting and computing. Imprecise Deep Neural Network Inference in Deadline-Aware Intermittent Systems. This dissertation proposes Zygarde- an energy-aware and outcome-aware soft-real-time imprecise deep neural network (DNN) task scheduling framework for intermittent systems. Zygarde leverages the semantic diversity of input data and layer-dependent expressiveness of deep features and infers only the necessary DNN layers based on available time and energy. Zygarde proposes a novel technique to determine the imprecise boundary at the runtime by exploiting the clustering classifiers and specialized offline training of the DNNs to minimize the loss of accuracy due to partial execution. It also proposes a single metric, η to represent a system’s predictability that measures how close a harvesterâs harvesting pattern is to a constant energy source. Besides, Zygarde consists of a scheduling algorithm that takes available time, available energy, impreciseness, and the classifier's performance into account. Scheduling Mutually Exclusive Computing and Harvesting Tasks in Deadline-Aware Intermittent Systems. The lack of sufficient ambient energy to directly power the intermittent systems introduces mutually exclusive computing and charging cycles of intermittently powered systems. This introduces a challenging real-time scheduling problem where the existing real-time algorithms fail due to the lack of interruption in execution time. To address this, this dissertation proposes Celebi, which considers the dynamics of the available energy and schedules when to harvest and when to compute in batteryless systems. Using data-driven simulation and real-world experiments, this dissertation shows that Celebi significantly increases the number of tasks that complete execution before their deadline when power was only available intermittently. Persistent System Emulation with Distributed Intermittent System. Intermittently-powered sensing and computing systems go through sporadic power-on and off periods due to the uncertain availability of energy sources. Despite the recent efforts to advance time-sensitive intermittent systems, such systems fail to capture important target events when the energy is absent for a prolonged time. This event miss limits the potential usage of intermittent systems in fault- intolerant and safety-critical applications. To address this problem, this dissertation proposes Falinks, a framework that allows a swarm of distributed intermittently powered nodes to collaboratively imitate the sensing and computing capabilities of a persistently powered system. This framework provides power-on and off schedules for the swamp of intermittent nodes which has no communication capability with each other.Doctor of Philosoph

    Biomimetic Based Applications

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    The interaction between cells, tissues and biomaterial surfaces are the highlights of the book "Biomimetic Based Applications". In this regard the effect of nanostructures and nanotopographies and their effect on the development of a new generation of biomaterials including advanced multifunctional scaffolds for tissue engineering are discussed. The 2 volumes contain articles that cover a wide spectrum of subject matter such as different aspects of the development of scaffolds and coatings with enhanced performance and bioactivity, including investigations of material surface-cell interactions

    Non-invasive Techniques Towards Recovering Highly Secure Unclonable Cryptographic Keys and Detecting Counterfeit Memory Chips

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    Due to the ubiquitous presence of memory components in all electronic computing systems, memory-based signatures are considered low-cost alternatives to generate unique device identifiers (IDs) and cryptographic keys. On the one hand, this unique device ID can potentially be used to identify major types of device counterfeitings such as remarked, overproduced, and cloned. On the other hand, memory-based cryptographic keys are commercially used in many cryptographic applications such as securing software IP, encrypting key vault, anchoring device root of trust, and device authentication for could services. As memory components generate this signature in runtime rather than storing them in memory, an attacker cannot clone/copy the signature and reuse them in malicious activity. However, to ensure the desired level of security, signatures generated from two different memory chips should be completely random and uncorrelated from each other. Traditionally, memory-based signatures are considered unique and uncorrelated due to the random variation in the manufacturing process. Unfortunately, in previous studies, many deterministic components of the manufacturing process, such as memory architecture, layout, systematic process variation, device package, are ignored. This dissertation shows that these deterministic factors can significantly correlate two memory signatures if those two memory chips share the same manufacturing resources (i.e., manufacturing facility, specification set, design file, etc.). We demonstrate that this signature correlation can be used to detect major counterfeit types in a non-invasive and low-cost manner. Furthermore, we use this signature correlation as side-channel information to attack memory-based cryptographic keys. We validate our contribution by collecting data from several commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) memory chips/modules and considering different usage-case scenarios

    Designing and Deploying Internet of Things Applications in the Industry: An Empirical Investigation

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    RÉSUMÉ : L’Internet des objets (IdO) a pour objectif de permettre la connectivité à presque tous les objets trouvés dans l’espace physique. Il étend la connectivité aux objets de tous les jours et o˙re la possibilité de surveiller, de suivre, de se connecter et d’intéragir plus eÿcacement avec les actifs industriels. Dans l’industrie de nos jours, les réseaux de capteurs connectés surveillent les mouvements logistiques, fabriquent des machines et aident les organisations à améliorer leur eÿcacité et à réduire les coûts. Cependant, la conception et l’implémentation d’un réseau IdO restent, aujourd’hui, une tâche particulièrement diÿcile. Nous constatons un haut niveau de fragmentation dans le paysage de l’IdO, les développeurs se complaig-nent régulièrement de la diÿculté à intégrer diverses technologies avec des divers objets trouvés dans les systèmes IdO et l’absence des directives et/ou des pratiques claires pour le développement et le déploiement d’application IdO sûres et eÿcaces. Par conséquent, analyser et comprendre les problèmes liés au développement et au déploiement de l’IdO sont primordiaux pour permettre à l’industrie d’exploiter son plein potentiel. Dans cette thèse, nous examinons les interactions des spécialistes de l’IdO sur le sites Web populaire, Stack Overflow et Stack Exchange, afin de comprendre les défis et les problèmes auxquels ils sont confrontés lors du développement et du déploiement de di˙érentes appli-cations de l’IdO. Ensuite, nous examinons le manque d’interopérabilité entre les techniques développées pour l’IdO, nous étudions les défis que leur intégration pose et nous fournissons des directives aux praticiens intéressés par la connexion des réseaux et des dispositifs de l’IdO pour développer divers services et applications. D’autre part, la sécurité étant essen-tielle au succès de cette technologie, nous étudions les di˙érentes menaces et défis de sécurité sur les di˙érentes couches de l’architecture des systèmes de l’IdO et nous proposons des contre-mesures. Enfin, nous menons une série d’expériences qui vise à comprendre les avantages et les incon-vénients des déploiements ’serverful’ et ’serverless’ des applications de l’IdO afin de fournir aux praticiens des directives et des recommandations fondées sur des éléments probants relatifs à de tels déploiements. Les résultats présentés représentent une étape très importante vers une profonde compréhension de ces technologies très prometteuses. Nous estimons que nos recommandations et nos suggestions aideront les praticiens et les bâtisseurs technologiques à améliorer la qualité des logiciels et des systèmes de l’IdO. Nous espérons que nos résultats pourront aider les communautés et les consortiums de l’IdO à établir des normes et des directives pour le développement, la maintenance, et l’évolution des logiciels de l’IdO.----------ABSTRACT : Internet of Things (IoT) aims to bring connectivity to almost every object found in the phys-ical space. It extends connectivity to everyday things, opens up the possibility to monitor, track, connect, and interact with industrial assets more eÿciently. In the industry nowadays, we can see connected sensor networks monitor logistics movements, manufacturing machines, and help organizations improve their eÿciency and reduce costs as well. However, designing and implementing an IoT network today is still a very challenging task. We are witnessing a high level of fragmentation in the IoT landscape and developers regularly complain about the diÿculty to integrate diverse technologies of various objects found in IoT systems, and the lack of clear guidelines and–or practices for developing and deploying safe and eÿcient IoT applications. Therefore, analyzing and understanding issues related to the development and deployment of the Internet of Things is utterly important to allow the industry to utilize its fullest potential. In this thesis, we examine IoT practitioners’ discussions on the popular Q&A websites, Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, to understand the challenges and issues that they face when developing and deploying di˙erent IoT applications. Next, we examine the lack of interoper-ability among technologies developed for IoT and study the challenges that their integration poses and provide guidelines for practitioners interested in connecting IoT networks and de-vices to develop various services and applications. Since security issues are center to the success of this technology, we also investigate di˙erent security threats and challenges across di˙erent layers of the architecture of IoT systems and propose countermeasures. Finally, we conduct a series of experiments to understand the advantages and trade-o˙s of serverful and serverless deployments of IoT applications in order to provide practitioners with evidence-based guidelines and recommendations on such deployments. The results presented in this thesis represent a first important step towards a deep understanding of these very promising technologies. We believe that our recommendations and suggestions will help practitioners and technology builders improve the quality of IoT software and systems. We also hope that our results can help IoT communities and consortia establish standards and guidelines for the development, maintenance, and evolution of IoT software and systems
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