Improving Resilience Against Node Capture Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks Using ICmetrics

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have the potential of being employed in a variety of applications ranging from battlefield surveillance to everyday applications such as smart homes and patient monitoring. Security is a major challenge that all applications based on WSNs are facing nowadays. Firstly, due to the wireless nature of WSNs, and secondly due to their ability to operate in unattended environments makes them even more vulnerable to various sorts of attacks. Among these attacks is node capture attack in WSNs, whose threat severity can range from a single node being compromised in the network to the whole network being compromised as a result of that single node compromise. In this paper, we propose the use of ICMetric technology to provide resilience against node compromise in WSN. ICmetrics generates the security attributes of the sensor node based on measurable hardware and software characteristics of the integrated circuit. These properties of ICmetrics can help safeguard WSNs from various node capture attacks

Application of Quantum Cryptography to Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructures in Space Communications

As society becomes more dependent on technology and the internet, critical infrastructure, which provides the fundamental services that millions of people depend on, becomes more vulnerable to cyber threats. This paper presents the importance of cybersecurity in critical infrastructure addressing the communications sector which is prevailed by space systems. It gives an overview of laser communications via satellite, and it argues the utility that quantum cryptography can provide to secure the data transmitted between communication satellites and ground stations from cyber attacks. Common encryption algorithms are briefly introduced as well as a review on quantum computing. Quantum cryptography is still a primitive concept, but as technology advances more and more researchers are focusing their attention into this visionary cryptography system

A Novel Private Cloud Document Archival System Architecture Based on ICmetrics

This paper proposes a novel architecture that offers features for a truly interactive yet private document archival cloud. The proposed secure document archival system has been specifically designed for the elimination of paper based systems in organization. The architecture attempts to shift paper based systems to an electronic archival system where the documents are secure and the system is supportive to user demands and features. Therefore besides document archival the proposed architecture also offers the authentication and encryption for secure keeping of data on the cloud. We propose a novel combination of SSL coupled with ICMetrics for the document archival system, which will prove to be a very valuable tool for encrypting and authenticating in the cloud world

Secure device identification using multidimensional mapping

In this paper we investigate several potential hardware features from multiple devices for suitability during the employment of a device identification. The generation of stable and unique digital identity from features is challenging in device identification because of the unstable operation environments that implies the features employed are likely to vary under normal operating conditions. To address this, we introduce a novel multi-dimensional key generation technology which maps from multi-dimensional feature space directly to a key space. Furthermore, normalized distributions of features give the necessary data to model the characteristics, from which we derive intra-sample device feature distributions, and correlate the distinct features to generate a secure key to identify the device. Furthermore, to evaluate our experiment, we considerably carried out measurement using the mathematical & statistical modelling

Robust Device Authentication Using Non-Standard Classification Features

This paper investigates the use of novel hardware features derived from the physical and behavioral characteristics of electronic devices to identify such devices uniquely. Importantly, the features examined exhibit non-standard and multimodal distributions which present a significant challenge to model and characterize. Specifically, the potency of four data classification methods is compared whilst employing such characteristics, proposed model Multivariate Gaussian Distribution (MVGD -address multimodality), Logistic Regression (LogR), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM). Performance is measured based on its accuracy, precision, recall and f measure. The experimental results reveal that by addressing multimodal features with proposed model Multivariate Gaussian Distribution classifier, the overall performance is better than the other classifiers

Extensões para design de hardware digital em aplicações aeroespaciais

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia de ComunicaçõesA comunicação é considerada por especialistas como uma necessidade básica para a sobrevivência dos seres humanos. Com os constantes avanços tecnológicos e conectividade eletrónica universal sente-se cada vez mais a necessidade e a importância do sigilo para a realização de operações de envio e receção de informação em aplicações, de forma a garantir segurança e fiabilidade da informação. Isto leva a uma maior consciência da necessidade de proteger dados e recursos de divulgação, para garantir a autenticidade da informação, e para proteger os sistemas de ataques na rede. Atualmente, dispositivos programáveis do tipo FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) são a principal opção para a implementação física de sistemas eletrónicos integrados, como tal diversas técnicas de tolerância a falhas têm sido propostas para a aplicação em FPGAs, por forma a tornar os sistemas confiáveis e com um alto desempenho, mesmo na ocorrência de falhas. O uso de HDLs (Hardware Description Language) para conceber implementações em FPGAs de elevada densidade é vantajoso, uma vez que as HDLs podem ser usadas para criar projetos grandes e complexos onde seja necessário que vários projetistas trabalhem em equipa, é possível que cada um possa trabalhar de forma independente em partes separadas de código. A base deste trabalho consiste no estudo de diferentes HDLs, e identificar os pontos onde o nível de abstração pode ser aumentando. Identificando possíveis constructs que permitirão um desenvolvimento mais rápido e uma mais fácil compreensão por terceiros, surgindo uma futura extensão do SystemVerilog. Nesta dissertação são implementadas novas metodologias para extensão da linguagem SystemVerilog tendo em conta o insuficiente nível de abstração na implementação de sistemas que requerem propriedades que implicam codificação minuciosa, como é o caso de sistemas com tolerância a falhas. É realizadoum case studyutilizando HDLs,que consiste na implementação, em hardware, de um algoritmo de encriptação eficiente para aplicações aeroespaciais com tolerância a falhas. A implementação, das técnicas de tolerância a falhas para aplicações aeroespaciais é essencial, devido a taxa de falhas por radiações cósmicas e ruido eletromagnéticoseja elevada no espaço quando comparada ao nível do mar, o que torna a análise das melhores técnicas de tolerância a falhas de suma importância. Uma vez que não existe nenhuma técnica capaz de garantir que um sistema seja totalmente imune a falhas, torna-se necessário a análise de qual das técnicas aplicadas amenizará a vulnerabilidade com menores custos a nível de implementação e desempenho.Communication is considered by specialists as a basic need for the survival of human beings. With the constant advances in technology and universal electronic connectivity is perceived the growing need and importance of secrecy to conduct transmission and reception operations of information in applications, to ensure safety and reliability of information. This leads to a greater awareness of the need to protect data and resources from disclosure, to guarantee the authenticity of information, and to protect systems from network attacks. Nowadays, devices like programmable FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) are the main option for the physical implementation of integrated electronic systems, such as different fault tolerance techniques have been proposed for implementation on FPGAs, in order to make systems reliable and with high performance even in the occurrence of failures. The use of HDLs to design high density FPGAs implementations is advantageous since the HDLs can be used to create large and complex designs where it is necessary that several designers workas a team, it is possible that each can work independently on separate parts of code. The basis of this work consists on the study of different HDLs, and identifies the points where the level of abstraction can be increased. Identifying possible constructs that enable faster development and more easily understood by others, creating a future extensionofSystemVerilog. In this dissertation are implemented new methodologies for extension of SystemVerilog taking into consideration the insufficient level of abstraction in implementing systems that require properties which implymeticulous coding, as systems with fault tolerance. It is performed a case study using HDLs, which consists in the implementation in hardware of an efficient encryption algorithm for aerospace fault tolerant applications. The implementation techniques of fault tolerance are critical for aerospace applications, because the failure rate for cosmic radiation and electromagnetic noise is high in space when compared to sea level, which makes analysis of the best techniques for fault tolerance of great importance. Since there is not any technique which guarantees a system fully fault tolerant, it is necessary to analyze which the applied techniques will ease the vulnerability level with the lower costs implementation and performance

Investigation of Multimodal Template-Free Biometric Techniques and Associated Exception Handling

The Biometric systems are commonly used as a fundamental tool by both government and private sector organizations to allow restricted access to sensitive areas, to identify the criminals by the police and to authenticate the identification of individuals requesting to access to certain personal and confidential services. The applications of these identification tools have created issues of security and privacy relating to personal, commercial and government identities. Over the last decade, reports of increasing insecurity to the personal data of users in the public and commercial domain applications has prompted the development of more robust and sound measures to protect the personal data of users from being stolen and spoofing. The present study aimed to introduce the scheme for integrating direct and indirect biometric key generation schemes with the application of Shamir‘s secret sharing algorithm in order to address the two disadvantages: revocability of the biometric key and the exception handling of biometric modality. This study used two different approaches for key generation using Shamir‘s secret sharing scheme: template based approach for indirect key generation and template-free. The findings of this study demonstrated that the encryption key generated by the proposed system was not required to be stored in the database which prevented the attack on the privacy of the data of the individuals from the hackers. Interestingly, the proposed system was also able to generate multiple encryption keys with varying lengths. Furthermore, the results of this study also offered the flexibility of providing the multiple keys for different applications for each user. The results from this study, consequently, showed the considerable potential and prospect of the proposed scheme to generate encryption keys directly and indirectly from the biometric samples, which could enhance its success in biometric security field

Key Generation for Secure Inter-Satellite Communication

This paper addresses issues relating to the generation of secure encryption keys for use in inter-satellite communications operating in a low power environment. It introduces techniques which possess the potential to generate encryption keys based on properties or features directly associated with the actual satellites and thus removing the necessity for key storage. This research investigates constraints associated with ensuring secure inter-satellite communications for satellite constellations. The need for data sent to and from satellites to be secure and verified is substantial. Security can be improved by using encryption techniques based on keys, which are based on unique properties of the individual nodes within the satellite network. This will serve both to minimize the need for key sharing as well as to validate the initiator node of a message