Security of the Internet of Things: Vulnerabilities, Attacks and Countermeasures

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) constitute one of the most promising third-millennium technologies and have wide range of applications in our surrounding environment. The reason behind the vast adoption of WSNs in various applications is that they have tremendously appealing features, e.g., low production cost, low installation cost, unattended network operation, autonomous and longtime operation. WSNs have started to merge with the Internet of Things (IoT) through the introduction of Internet access capability in sensor nodes and sensing ability in Internet-connected devices. Thereby, the IoT is providing access to huge amount of data, collected by the WSNs, over the Internet. Hence, the security of IoT should start with foremost securing WSNs ahead of the other components. However, owing to the absence of a physical line-of-defense, i.e., there is no dedicated infrastructure such as gateways to watch and observe the flowing information in the network, security of WSNs along with IoT is of a big concern to the scientific community. More specifically, for the application areas in which CIA (confidentiality, integrity, availability) has prime importance, WSNs and emerging IoT technology might constitute an open avenue for the attackers. Besides, recent integration and collaboration of WSNs with IoT will open new challenges and problems in terms of security. Hence, this would be a nightmare for the individuals using these systems as well as the security administrators who are managing those networks. Therefore, a detailed review of security attacks towards WSNs and IoT, along with the techniques for prevention, detection, and mitigation of those attacks are provided in this paper. In this text, attacks are categorized and treated into mainly two parts, most or all types of attacks towards WSNs and IoT are investigated under that umbrella: “Passive Attacks” and “Active Attacks”. Understanding these attacks and their associated defense mechanisms will help paving a secure path towards the proliferation and public acceptance of IoT technology

Secure Geo-location Techniques using Trusted Hyper-visor

Για πολλούς, η γεωγραφική θέση είναι μια απλή διαδικασία όπου με τη χρήση του GPS ένα άτομο μπορεί να εντοπιστεί όπου και όποτε ζητείται. Ωστόσο, ακόμη και αν η χρήση του GPS για γεωγραφική τοποθέτηση είναι ο πιο συνηθισμένος τρόπος και ταυτόχρονα ακριβής ως σύστημα, αποτελεί μια τεράστια κατανάλωση ενέργειας για να επιτευχθεί αυτή η διαδικασία και υστερεί σε μηχανισμούς και τεχνικές ασφαλείας. Σκοπός αυτής της εργασίας είναι να παρουσιάσουμε μια άλλη όψη για το πώς μπορούμε να εντοπίσουμε μια άγνωστη θέση ενός κόμβου σε ένα σύστημα και πώς θα μπορούσε να δημιουργηθεί ένα ασφαλές περιβάλλον για αυτόν τον κόμβο. Βασική μας ιδέα ήταν η δημιουργία ενός μηχανισμού όπου θα μπορούσαμε να δημιουργήσουμε ένα τρισδιάστατο πεδίο στο οποίο θα μπορούσε να εντοπιστεί άγνωστος κόμβος και στη συνέχεια θα δημιουργηθεί ένα ασφαλές περιβάλλον για τον νέο κόμβο. Μετά από μια έρευνα σε δημοσιεύσεις σχετικά με τρισδιάστατους μηχανισμούς και τεχνικές γεω-εντοπισμού, παράλληλα με την έννοια των hypervisors για τη δημιουργία ασφαλούς περιβάλλοντος με την αξιοποίηση της κρυπτογραφίας, καταλήξαμε στο συμπέρασμα της δημιουργίας ενός πλαισίου που θα ικανοποιούσε αυτά απαιτήσεις. Δημιουργήσαμε ένα τρισδιάστατο πεδίο τεσσάρων σταθμών κόμβων, όπου χρησιμοποιήσαμε δύο αλγορίθμους εντοπισμού, χωρίς GPS, για τον εντοπισμό της θέση ενός πέμπτου άγνωστου κόμβου παράλληλα με έναν hypervisor για τη δημιουργία περιβάλλοντος εμπιστοσύνης. Χρησιμοποιήσαμε ένα TPM για τη δημιουργία κρυπτογραφικών μηχανισμών και κλειδιών ασφαλείας. Σε αυτή την εργασία δημιουργήσαμε μια προσομοίωση όπου συγκρίνουμε την απόδοση αυτών των δύο αλγορίθμων γεωγραφικής τοποθέτησης από την άποψη της ταχύτητας και της ακρίβειας του υπολογισμού, παράλληλα με την απόδοση των μηχανισμών ασφαλείας του hypervisor και την ικανότητά του για ασφάλιση ακεραιότητας δεδομένων. Εκτός από τα συστατικά του προτεινόμενου μηχανισμού, παρουσιάζουμε και άλλες πληροφορίες που βρήκαμε σε σχετικά έγγραφα, όπως μια ποικιλία από hypervisors και μια ποικιλία τεχνικών εντοπισμού, για περισσότερες πληροφορίες για μελλοντικές εργασίες παράλληλα με τα βήματα υλοποίησης και εκτέλεσης.For many, geo-location is a simple process where with the utilization of GPS a person can be located wherever and whenever is requested. However, even if the utilization of GPS for geolocation is the most common way and accurate as a system, it is a huge consumption of energy in order to achieve this process and it lucks on safety mechanisms and techniques. The purpose of this paper is to present another view of how we could locate an unknown node position in a system and how a safe environment could be created for this node. Our main idea was about the creation of a framework where we could create a three-dimensional field in which an unknown node could be located and afterwards a safe environment would be created for the new node. After a research on papers relevant with three-dimensional geo-localization mechanisms and techniques, alongside with the concept of hypervisors for the creation of safe environment with the utilization of cryptography, we came to the conclusion of the creation of a framework which would satisfy those requirements. We created a 3-Dimentional field of four base nodes stations, where we utilized two localization GPS-free algorithms for the location of a fifth unknown node alongside with a hypervisor for the trust environment creation. We utilized a TPM for the cryptography mechanisms and safety keys creation. In this paper we created a simulation where we compare the performance of those two geolocation algorithms in terms of accuracy and computation speed and accuracy, alongside with the hypervisor’s security mechanisms performance and its ability for data integrity insurance. Except our proposed framework components, we present also further information that we found in relevant papers, such as a variety of hypervisors and a variety of localization techniques, for more information for future work alongside with implementation steps and guidanc

A Survey on Security and Privacy of 5G Technologies: Potential Solutions, Recent Advancements, and Future Directions

Security has become the primary concern in many telecommunications industries today as risks can have high consequences. Especially, as the core and enable technologies will be associated with 5G network, the confidential information will move at all layers in future wireless systems. Several incidents revealed that the hazard encountered by an infected wireless network, not only affects the security and privacy concerns, but also impedes the complex dynamics of the communications ecosystem. Consequently, the complexity and strength of security attacks have increased in the recent past making the detection or prevention of sabotage a global challenge. From the security and privacy perspectives, this paper presents a comprehensive detail on the core and enabling technologies, which are used to build the 5G security model; network softwarization security, PHY (Physical) layer security and 5G privacy concerns, among others. Additionally, the paper includes discussion on security monitoring and management of 5G networks. This paper also evaluates the related security measures and standards of core 5G technologies by resorting to different standardization bodies and provide a brief overview of 5G standardization security forces. Furthermore, the key projects of international significance, in line with the security concerns of 5G and beyond are also presented. Finally, a future directions and open challenges section has included to encourage future research.European CommissionNational Research Tomsk Polytechnic UniversityUpdate citation details during checkdate report - A