ZigBee/ZigBee PRO security assessment based on compromised cryptographic keys

Sensor networks have many applications in monitoring and controlling of environmental properties such as sound, acceleration, vibration and temperature. Due to limited resources in computation capability, memory and energy, they are vulnerable to many kinds of attacks. The ZigBee specification based on the 802.15.4 standard, defines a set of layers specifically suited to sensor networks. These layers support secure messaging using symmetric cryptographic. This paper presents two different ways for grabbing the cryptographic key in ZigBee: remote attack and physical attack. It also surveys and categorizes some additional attacks which can be performed on ZigBee networks: eavesdropping, spoofing, replay and DoS attacks at different layers. From this analysis, it is shown that some vulnerabilities still in the existing security schema in ZigBee technology.Les xarxes de sensors tenen moltes aplicacions en el control i la monitorització de les propietats del medi ambient, com ara el so, l¿acceleració, la vibració i la temperatura. A causa dels limitats recursos en la capacitat de càlcul, la memòria i l'energia són vulnerables a molts tipus d'atacs. L'especificació ZigBee basada en l'estàndard 802.15.4, defineix un conjunt de capes, adaptada específicament per a xarxes de sensors. Aquestes capes suporten missatgeria segura mitjançant criptografia simètrica. Aquest article presenta dues formes diferents per agafar la clau de xifrat en ZigBee: atac a distància i atacs físics. També les enquesta i classifica alguns atacs addicionals que es poden realitzar en les xarxes ZigBee: espionatge, falsificació, reproducció i atacs DoS en les diferents capes. A partir d'aquesta anàlisi, es demostren algunes vulnerabilitats existents en l'esquema de seguretat en tecnologia ZigBee.Las redes de sensores tienen muchas aplicaciones en el control y la monitorización de las propiedades del medio ambiente, como el sonido, la aceleración, la vibración y la temperatura. Debido a los limitados recursos en la capacidad de cálculo, la memoria y la energía son vulnerables a muchos tipos de ataques. La especificación ZigBee basada en el estándar 802.15.4, define un conjunto de capas, adaptada específicamente para redes de sensores. Estas capas soportan mensajería segura mediante criptografía simétrica. Este artículo presenta dos formas diferentes para coger la clave de cifrado en ZigBee: ataque a distancia y ataques físicos. También las encuesta y clasifica algunos ataques adicionales que se pueden realizar en las redes ZigBee: espionaje, falsificación, reproducción y ataques DoS en las diferentes capas. A partir de este análisis, se demuestran algunas vulnerabilidades existentes en el esquema de seguridad en tecnología ZigBee

Wireless body sensor networks for health-monitoring applications

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physiological Measurement. The publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/29/11/R01

Wireless industrial monitoring and control networks: the journey so far and the road ahead

While traditional wired communication technologies have played a crucial role in industrial monitoring and control networks over the past few decades, they are increasingly proving to be inadequate to meet the highly dynamic and stringent demands of today’s industrial applications, primarily due to the very rigid nature of wired infrastructures. Wireless technology, however, through its increased pervasiveness, has the potential to revolutionize the industry, not only by mitigating the problems faced by wired solutions, but also by introducing a completely new class of applications. While present day wireless technologies made some preliminary inroads in the monitoring domain, they still have severe limitations especially when real-time, reliable distributed control operations are concerned. This article provides the reader with an overview of existing wireless technologies commonly used in the monitoring and control industry. It highlights the pros and cons of each technology and assesses the degree to which each technology is able to meet the stringent demands of industrial monitoring and control networks. Additionally, it summarizes mechanisms proposed by academia, especially serving critical applications by addressing the real-time and reliability requirements of industrial process automation. The article also describes certain key research problems from the physical layer communication for sensor networks and the wireless networking perspective that have yet to be addressed to allow the successful use of wireless technologies in industrial monitoring and control networks

A Comprehensive Analysis of Literature Reported Mac and Phy Enhancements of Zigbee and its Alliances

Wireless communication is one of the most required technologies by the common man. The strength of this technology is rigorously progressing towards several novel directions in establishing personal wireless networks mounted over on low power consuming systems. The cutting-edge communication technologies like bluetooth, WIFI and ZigBee significantly play a prime role to cater the basic needs of any individual. ZigBee is one such evolutionary technology steadily getting its popularity in establishing personal wireless networks which is built on small and low-power digital radios. Zigbee defines the physical and MAC layers built on IEEE standard. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of literature reported MAC and PHY enhancements of ZigBee and its contemporary technologies with respect to performance, power consumption, scheduling, resource management and timing and address binding. The work also discusses on the areas of ZigBee MAC and PHY towards their design for specific applications

A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

IEEE 802.15.4: a Federating Communication Protocol for Time-Sensitive Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been attracting increasing interests for developing a new generation of embedded systems with great potential for many applications such as surveillance, environment monitoring, emergency medical response and home automation. However, the communication paradigms in WSNs differ from the ones attributed to traditional wireless networks, triggering the need for new communication protocols. In this context, the recently standardised IEEE 802.15.4 protocol presents some potentially interesting features for deployment in wireless sensor network applications, such as power-efficiency, timeliness guarantees and scalability. Nevertheless, when addressing WSN applications with (soft/hard) timing requirements some inherent paradoxes emerge, such as power-efficiency versus timeliness, triggering the need of engineering solutions for an efficient deployment of IEEE 802.15.4 in WSNs. In this technical report, we will explore the most relevant characteristics of the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol for wireless sensor networks and present the most important challenges regarding time-sensitive WSN applications. We also provide some timing performance and analysis of the IEEE 802.15.4 that unveil some directions for resolving the previously mentioned paradoxes

Survey of Spectrum Sharing for Inter-Technology Coexistence

Increasing capacity demands in emerging wireless technologies are expected to be met by network densification and spectrum bands open to multiple technologies. These will, in turn, increase the level of interference and also result in more complex inter-technology interactions, which will need to be managed through spectrum sharing mechanisms. Consequently, novel spectrum sharing mechanisms should be designed to allow spectrum access for multiple technologies, while efficiently utilizing the spectrum resources overall. Importantly, it is not trivial to design such efficient mechanisms, not only due to technical aspects, but also due to regulatory and business model constraints. In this survey we address spectrum sharing mechanisms for wireless inter-technology coexistence by means of a technology circle that incorporates in a unified, system-level view the technical and non-technical aspects. We thus systematically explore the spectrum sharing design space consisting of parameters at different layers. Using this framework, we present a literature review on inter-technology coexistence with a focus on wireless technologies with equal spectrum access rights, i.e. (i) primary/primary, (ii) secondary/secondary, and (iii) technologies operating in a spectrum commons. Moreover, we reflect on our literature review to identify possible spectrum sharing design solutions and performance evaluation approaches useful for future coexistence cases. Finally, we discuss spectrum sharing design challenges and suggest future research directions

Improved Wireless Security through Physical Layer Protocol Manipulation and Radio Frequency Fingerprinting

Wireless networks are particularly vulnerable to spoofing and route poisoning attacks due to the contested transmission medium. Traditional bit-layer defenses including encryption keys and MAC address control lists are vulnerable to extraction and identity spoofing, respectively. This dissertation explores three novel strategies to leverage the wireless physical layer to improve security in low-rate wireless personal area networks. The first, physical layer protocol manipulation, identifies true transceiver design within remote devices through analysis of replies in response to packets transmitted with modified physical layer headers. Results herein demonstrate a methodology that correctly differentiates among six IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver classes with greater than 99% accuracy, regardless of claimed bit-layer identity. The second strategy, radio frequency fingerprinting, accurately identifies the true source of every wireless transmission in a network, even among devices of the same design and manufacturer. Results suggest that even low-cost signal collection receivers can achieve greater than 90% authentication accuracy within a defense system based on radio frequency fingerprinting. The third strategy, based on received signal strength quantification, can be leveraged to rapidly locate suspicious transmission sources and to perform physical security audits of critical networks. Results herein reduce mean absolute percentage error of a widely-utilized distance estimation model 20% by examining signal strength measurements from real-world networks in a military hospital and a civilian hospital