FPGA based remote code integrity verification of programs in distributed embedded systems

The explosive growth of networked embedded systems has made ubiquitous and pervasive computing a reality. However, there are still a number of new challenges to its widespread adoption that include scalability, availability, and, especially, security of software. Among the different challenges in software security, the problem of remote-code integrity verification is still waiting for efficient solutions. This paper proposes the use of reconfigurable computing to build a consistent architecture for generation of attestations (proofs) of code integrity for an executing program as well as to deliver them to the designated verification entity. Remote dynamic update of reconfigurable devices is also exploited to increase the complexity of mounting attacks in a real-word environment. The proposed solution perfectly fits embedded devices that are nowadays commonly equipped with reconfigurable hardware components that are exploited to solve different computational problems

C-FLAT: Control-FLow ATtestation for Embedded Systems Software

Remote attestation is a crucial security service particularly relevant to increasingly popular IoT (and other embedded) devices. It allows a trusted party (verifier) to learn the state of a remote, and potentially malware-infected, device (prover). Most existing approaches are static in nature and only check whether benign software is initially loaded on the prover. However, they are vulnerable to run-time attacks that hijack the application's control or data flow, e.g., via return-oriented programming or data-oriented exploits. As a concrete step towards more comprehensive run-time remote attestation, we present the design and implementation of Control- FLow ATtestation (C-FLAT) that enables remote attestation of an application's control-flow path, without requiring the source code. We describe a full prototype implementation of C-FLAT on Raspberry Pi using its ARM TrustZone hardware security extensions. We evaluate C-FLAT's performance using a real-world embedded (cyber-physical) application, and demonstrate its efficacy against control-flow hijacking attacks.Comment: Extended version of article to appear in CCS '16 Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Securit

RADIS: Remote Attestation of Distributed IoT Services

Remote attestation is a security technique through which a remote trusted party (i.e., Verifier) checks the trustworthiness of a potentially untrusted device (i.e., Prover). In the Internet of Things (IoT) systems, the existing remote attestation protocols propose various approaches to detect the modified software and physical tampering attacks. However, in an interoperable IoT system, in which IoT devices interact autonomously among themselves, an additional problem arises: a compromised IoT service can influence the genuine operation of other invoked service, without changing the software of the latter. In this paper, we propose a protocol for Remote Attestation of Distributed IoT Services (RADIS), which verifies the trustworthiness of distributed IoT services. Instead of attesting the complete memory content of the entire interoperable IoT devices, RADIS attests only the services involved in performing a certain functionality. RADIS relies on a control-flow attestation technique to detect IoT services that perform an unexpected operation due to their interactions with a malicious remote service. Our experiments show the effectiveness of our protocol in validating the integrity status of a distributed IoT service.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, 2 table

Smart Grid Technologies in Europe: An Overview

The old electricity network infrastructure has proven to be inadequate, with respect to modern challenges such as alternative energy sources, electricity demand and energy saving policies. Moreover, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) seem to have reached an adequate level of reliability and flexibility in order to support a new concept of electricity network—the smart grid. In this work, we will analyse the state-of-the-art of smart grids, in their technical, management, security, and optimization aspects. We will also provide a brief overview of the regulatory aspects involved in the development of a smart grid, mainly from the viewpoint of the European Unio

Secure Virtualization and Multicore Platforms State-of-the-Art report

SVaM

D2Gen: A Decentralized Device Genome Based Integrity Verification Mechanism for Collaborative Intrusion Detection Systems

Collaborative Intrusion Detection Systems are considered an effective defense mechanism for large, intricate, and multilayered Industrial Internet of Things against many cyberattacks. However, while a Collaborative Intrusion Detection System successfully detects and prevents various attacks, it is possible that an inside attacker performs a malicious act and compromises an Intrusion Detection System node. A compromised node can inflict considerable damage on the whole collaborative network. For instance, when a malicious node gives a false alert of an attack, the other nodes will unnecessarily increase their security and close all of their services, thus, degrading the system’s performance. On the contrary, if the spurious node approves malicious traffic into the system, the other nodes would also be compromised. Therefore, to detect a compromised node in the network, this article introduces a device integrity check mechanism based on “Digital Genome.” In medical science, a genome refers to a set that contains all of the information needed to build and maintain an organism. Based on the same concept, the digital genome is computed over a device’s vital hardware, software, and other components. Hence, if an attacker makes any change in a node’s hardware and software components, the digital genome will change, and the compromised node will be easily detected. It is envisaged that the proposed integrity attestation protocol can be used in diverse Internet of Things and other information technology applications to ensure the legitimate operation of end devices. This study also proffers a comprehensive security and performance analysis of the proposed framework

Practical analysis framework for software-based attestation scheme

An increasing number of ”smart” embedded devices are employed in our living environment nowadays. Unlike traditional computer systems, these devices are often physically accessible to the attackers. It is therefore almost impossible to guarantee that they are un-compromised, i.e., that indeed the devices are executing the intended software. In such a context, software-based attestation is deemed as a promising solution to validate their software integrity. It guarantees that the software running on the embedded devices are un-compromised without any hardware support. However, designing software-based attestation protocols are shown to be error-prone. In this work, we develop a framework for design and analysis of software-based attestation protocols. We first propose a generic attestation scheme that captures most existing software-based attestation protocols. After formalizing the security criteria for the generic scheme, we apply our analysis framework to several well-known software-based attestation protocols and report various potential vulnerabilities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first practical analysis framework for software-based attestation protocols.No Full Tex