Authentication under Constraints

Authentication has become a critical step to gain access to services such as on-line banking, e-commerce, transport systems and cars (contact-less keys). In several cases, however, the authentication process has to be performed under challenging conditions. This thesis is essentially a compendium of five papers which are the result of a two-year study on authentication in constrained settings. The two major constraints considered in this work are: (1) the noise and (2) the computational power. For what concerns authentication under noisy conditions, Paper A and Paper B ad- dress the case in which the noise is in the authentication credentials. More precisely, the aforementioned papers present attacks against biometric authentication systems, that exploit the inherent variant nature of biometric traits to gain information that should not be leaked by the system. Paper C and Paper D study proximity- based authentication, i.e., distance-bounding protocols. In this case, both of the constraints are present: the possible presence of noise in the channel (which affects communication and thus the authentication process), as well as resource constraints on the computational power and the storage space of the authenticating party (called the prover, e.g., an RFID tag). Finally, Paper E investigates how to achieve reliable verification of the authenticity of a digital signature, when the verifying party has limited computational power, and thus offloads part of the computations to an untrusted server. Throughout the presented research work, a special emphasis is given to privacy concerns risen by the constrained conditions

The safe administration of medication within the electromagnetic scenarios of the Internet of Things (IoT): looking towards the future

This paper has focused on analyzing the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to prevent or reduce errors during therapeutic drug administration. The methodology used has included scientific literature and marketed appliances reviews and laboratory tests on radiant devices. The role of the patient has been analyzed, both in terms of compliance with the prescribed treatments and user of technical solutions designed for administering medication. In addition, it has taken into account, how a future characterized by multiple technologies designed to support our daily routines, including health care, might affect the current model of relationship between health professionals and patients. Particular attention has been given to safety risks of ICTs in environments characterized by concurrent electromagnetic emissions operating at different frequencies. Implications and new scenarios from Internet of Things or IoT, have been considered, in light of the approach taken jointly by the European Commission and the European Technology Platform on Intelligent Systems Integration – EPoSS, in their 2008 report Internet of Things in 2020: a roadmap for the future, and how the concept has evolved since then.Chapter 1. Adverse drug events. Chapter 2. ICTs in everyday life and healthcare. Chapter 3. the challenge of electromagnetic safety. Chapter 4. ICTs in health care and in the prevention of medication errors: IoT. Chapter 5. A more effective and safer alternative approach. Chapter 6. Technological proposal 7. Conclusions.N

Ubiquitous Computing

The aim of this book is to give a treatment of the actively developed domain of Ubiquitous computing. Originally proposed by Mark D. Weiser, the concept of Ubiquitous computing enables a real-time global sensing, context-aware informational retrieval, multi-modal interaction with the user and enhanced visualization capabilities. In effect, Ubiquitous computing environments give extremely new and futuristic abilities to look at and interact with our habitat at any time and from anywhere. In that domain, researchers are confronted with many foundational, technological and engineering issues which were not known before. Detailed cross-disciplinary coverage of these issues is really needed today for further progress and widening of application range. This book collects twelve original works of researchers from eleven countries, which are clustered into four sections: Foundations, Security and Privacy, Integration and Middleware, Practical Applications

Security and Privacy in RFID Systems

This PhD thesis is concerned with authentication protocols using portable lightweight devices such as RFID tags. these devices have lately gained a significant attention for the diversity of the applications that could benefit form their features, ranging from inventory systems and building access control, to medical devices. However, the emergence of this technology has raised concerns about the possible loss of privacy carrying such tags induce in allowing tracing persons or unveiling the contents of a hidden package. this fear led to the appearance of several organizations which goal is to stop the spread of RFID tags. We take a cryptographic viewpoint on the issue and study the extent of security and privacy that RFID-based solutions can offer. In the first part of this thesis, we concentrate on analyzing two original primitives that were proposed to ensure security for RFID tags. the first one, HB#, is a dedicated authentication protocol that exclusively uses very simple arithmetic operations: bitwise AND and XOR. HB# was proven to be secure against a certain class of man-in-the-middle attacks and conjectured secure against more general ones. We show that the latter conjecture does not hold by describing a practical attack that allows an attacker to recover the tag's secret key. Moreover, we show that to be immune against our attack, HB#'s secret key size has to be increased to be more than 15 000 bits. this is an unpractical value for the considered applications. We then turn to SQUASH, a message authentication code built around a public-key encryption scheme, namely Rabin's scheme. By mounting a practical key recovery attack on the earlier version of SQUASH, we show that the security of all versions of SQUASH is unrelated to the security of Rabin encryption function. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to the privacy aspects related to the RFID technology. We first emphasize the importance of establishing a framework that correctly captures the intuition that a privacy-preserving protocol does not leak any information about its participants. For that, we show how several protocols that were supported by simple arguments, in contrast to a formal analysis, fail to ensure privacy. Namely, we target ProbIP, MARP, Auth2, YA-TRAP, YA-TRAP+, O-TRAP, RIPP-FS, and the Lim-Kwon protocol. We also illustrate the shortcomings of other privacy models such as the LBdM model. The rest of the dissertation is then dedicated to our privacy model. Contrarily to most RFID privacy models that limit privacy protection to the inability of linking the identity of two participants in two different protocol instances, we introduce a privacy model for RFID tags that proves to be the exact formalization of the intuition that a private protocol should not leak any information to the adversary. the model we introduce is a refinement of Vaudenay's one that invalidates a number of its limitations. Within these settings, we are able to show that the strongest notion of privacy, namely privacy against adversaries that have a prior knowledge of all the tags' secrets, is realizable. To instantiate an authentication protocol that achieves this level of privacy, we use plaintext-aware encryption schemes. We then extend our model to the case of mutual authentication where, in addition to a tag authenticating to the reader, the reverse operation is also required

A Framework for Facilitating Secure Design and Development of IoT Systems

The term Internet of Things (IoT) describes an ever-growing ecosystem of physical objects or things interconnected with each other and connected to the Internet. IoT devices consist of a wide range of highly heterogeneous inanimate and animate objects. Thus, a thing in the context of the IoT can even mean a person with blood pressure or heart rate monitor implant or a pet with a biochip transponder. IoT devices range from ordinary household appliances, such as smart light bulbs or smart coffee makers, to sophisticated tools for industrial automation. IoT is currently leading a revolutionary change in many industries and, as a result, a lot of industries and organizations are adopting the paradigm to gain a competitive edge. This allows them to boost operational efficiency and optimize system performance through real-time data management, which results in an optimized balance between energy usage and throughput. Another important application area is the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which is the application of the IoT in industrial settings. This is also referred to as the Industrial Internet or Industry 4.0, where Cyber- Physical Systems (CPS) are interconnected using various technologies to achieve wireless control as well as advanced manufacturing and factory automation. IoT applications are becoming increasingly prevalent across many application domains, including smart healthcare, smart cities, smart grids, smart farming, and smart supply chain management. Similarly, IoT is currently transforming the way people live and work, and hence the demand for smart consumer products among people is also increasing steadily. Thus, many big industry giants, as well as startup companies, are competing to dominate the market with their new IoT products and services, and hence unlocking the business value of IoT. Despite its increasing popularity, potential benefits, and proven capabilities, IoT is still in its infancy and fraught with challenges. The technology is faced with many challenges, including connectivity issues, compatibility/interoperability between devices and systems, lack of standardization, management of the huge amounts of data, and lack of tools for forensic investigations. However, the state of insecurity and privacy concerns in the IoT are arguably among the key factors restraining the universal adoption of the technology. Consequently, many recent research studies reveal that there are security and privacy issues associated with the design and implementation of several IoT devices and Smart Applications (smart apps). This can be attributed, partly, to the fact that as some IoT device makers and smart apps development companies (especially the start-ups) reap business value from the huge IoT market, they tend to neglect the importance of security. As a result, many IoT devices and smart apps are created with security vulnerabilities, which have resulted in many IoT related security breaches in recent years. This thesis is focused on addressing the security and privacy challenges that were briefly highlighted in the previous paragraph. Given that the Internet is not a secure environ ment even for the traditional computer systems makes IoT systems even less secure due to the inherent constraints associated with many IoT devices. These constraints, which are mainly imposed by cost since many IoT edge devices are expected to be inexpensive and disposable, include limited energy resources, limited computational and storage capabilities, as well as lossy networks due to the much lower hardware performance compared to conventional computers. While there are many security and privacy issues in the IoT today, arguably a root cause of such issues is that many start-up IoT device manufacturers and smart apps development companies do not adhere to the concept of security by design. Consequently, some of these companies produce IoT devices and smart apps with security vulnerabilities. In recent years, attackers have exploited different security vulnerabilities in IoT infrastructures which have caused several data breaches and other security and privacy incidents involving IoT devices and smart apps. These have attracted significant attention from the research community in both academia and industry, resulting in a surge of proposals put forward by many researchers. Although research approaches and findings may vary across different research studies, the consensus is that a fundamental prerequisite for addressing IoT security and privacy challenges is to build security and privacy protection into IoT devices and smart apps from the very beginning. To this end, this thesis investigates how to bake security and privacy into IoT systems from the onset, and as its main objective, this thesis particularly focuses on providing a solution that can foster the design and development of secure IoT devices and smart apps, namely the IoT Hardware Platform Security Advisor (IoT-HarPSecA) framework. The security framework is expected to provide support to designers and developers in IoT start-up companies during the design and implementation of IoT systems. IoT-HarPSecA framework is also expected to facilitate the implementation of security in existing IoT systems. To accomplish the previously mentioned objective as well as to affirm the aforementioned assertion, the following step-by-step problem-solving approach is followed. The first step is an exhaustive survey of different aspects of IoT security and privacy, including security requirements in IoT architecture, security threats in IoT architecture, IoT application domains and their associated cyber assets, the complexity of IoT vulnerabilities, and some possible IoT security and privacy countermeasures; and the survey wraps up with a brief overview of IoT hardware development platforms. The next steps are the identification of many challenges and issues associated with the IoT, which narrowed down to the abovementioned fundamental security/privacy issue; followed by a study of different aspects of security implementation in the IoT. The remaining steps are the framework design thinking process, framework design and implementation, and finally, framework performance evaluation. IoT-HarPSecA offers three functionality features, namely security requirement elicitation security best practice guidelines for secure development, and above all, a feature that recommends specific Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms (LWCAs) for both software and hardware implementations. Accordingly, IoT-HarPSecA is composed of three main components, namely Security Requirements Elicitation (SRE) component, Security Best Practice Guidelines (SBPG) component, and Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms Recommendation (LWCAR) component, each of them servicing one of the aforementioned features. The author has implemented a command-line tool in C++ to serve as an interface between users and the security framework. This thesis presents a detailed description, design, and implementation of the SRE, SBPG, and LWCAR components of the security framework. It also presents real-world practical scenarios that show how IoT-HarPSecA can be used to elicit security requirements, generate security best practices, and recommend appropriate LWCAs based on user inputs. Furthermore, the thesis presents performance evaluation of the SRE, SBPG, and LWCAR components framework tools, which shows that IoT-HarPSecA can serve as a roadmap for secure IoT development.O termo Internet das coisas (IoT) é utilizado para descrever um ecossistema, em expansão, de objetos físicos ou elementos interconetados entre si e à Internet. Os dispositivos IoT consistem numa gama vasta e heterogénea de objetos animados ou inanimados e, neste contexto, podem pertencer à IoT um indivíduo com um implante que monitoriza a frequência cardíaca ou até mesmo um animal de estimação que tenha um biochip. Estes dispositivos variam entre eletrodomésticos, tais como máquinas de café ou lâmpadas inteligentes, a ferramentas sofisticadas de uso na automatização industrial. A IoT está a revolucionar e a provocar mudanças em várias indústrias e muitas adotam esta tecnologia para incrementar as suas vantagens competitivas. Este paradigma melhora a eficiência operacional e otimiza o desempenho de sistemas através da gestão de dados em tempo real, resultando num balanço otimizado entre o uso energético e a taxa de transferência. Outra área de aplicação é a IoT Industrial (IIoT) ou internet industrial ou Indústria 4.0, ou seja, uma aplicação de IoT no âmbito industrial, onde os sistemas ciberfísicos estão interconectados a diversas tecnologias de forma a obter um controlo de rede sem fios, bem como fabricações avançadas e automatização fabril. As aplicações da IoT estão a crescer e a tornarem-se predominantes em muitos domínios de aplicação inteligentes como sistemas de saúde, cidades, redes, agricultura e sistemas de fornecimento. Da mesma forma, a IoT está a transformar estilos de vida e de trabalho e assim, a procura por produtos inteligentes está constantemente a aumentar. As grandes indústrias e startups competem entre si de forma a dominar o mercado com os seus novos serviços e produtos IoT, desbloqueando o valor de negócio da IoT. Apesar da sua crescente popularidade, benefícios e capacidades comprovadas, a IoT está ainda a dar os seus primeiros passos e é confrontada com muitos desafios. Entre eles, problemas de conectividade, compatibilidade/interoperabilidade entre dispositivos e sistemas, falta de padronização, gestão das enormes quantidades de dados e ainda falta de ferramentas para investigações forenses. No entanto, preocupações quanto ao estado de segurança e privacidade ainda estão entre os fatores adversos à adesão universal desta tecnologia. Estudos recentes revelaram que existem questões de segurança e privacidade associadas ao design e implementação de vários dispositivos IoT e aplicações inteligentes (smart apps.), isto pode ser devido ao facto, em parte, de que alguns fabricantes e empresas de desenvolvimento de dispositivos (especialmente startups) IoT e smart apps., recolham o valor de negócio dos grandes mercados IoT, negligenciando assim a importância da segurança, resultando em dispositivos IoT e smart apps. com carências e violações de segurança da IoT nos últimos anos. Esta tese aborda os desafios de segurança e privacidade que foram supra mencionados. Visto que a Internet e os sistemas informáticos tradicionais são por vezes considerados inseguros, os sistemas IoT tornam-se ainda mais inseguros, devido a restrições inerentes a tais dispositivos. Estas restrições são impostas devido ao custo, uma vez que se espera que muitos dispositivos de ponta sejam de baixo custo e descartáveis, com recursos energéticos limitados, bem como limitações na capacidade de armazenamento e computacionais, e redes com perdas devido a um desempenho de hardware de qualidade inferior, quando comparados com computadores convencionais. Uma das raízes do problema é o facto de que muitos fabricantes, startups e empresas de desenvolvimento destes dispositivos e smart apps não adiram ao conceito de segurança por construção, ou seja, logo na conceção, não preveem a proteção da privacidade e segurança. Assim, alguns dos produtos e dispositivos produzidos apresentam vulnerabilidades na segurança. Nos últimos anos, hackers maliciosos têm explorado diferentes vulnerabilidades de segurança nas infraestruturas da IoT, causando violações de dados e outros incidentes de privacidade envolvendo dispositivos IoT e smart apps. Estes têm atraído uma atenção significativa por parte das comunidades académica e industrial, que culminaram num grande número de propostas apresentadas por investigadores científicos. Ainda que as abordagens de pesquisa e os resultados variem entre os diferentes estudos, há um consenso e pré-requisito fundamental para enfrentar os desafios de privacidade e segurança da IoT, que buscam construir proteção de segurança e privacidade em dispositivos IoT e smart apps. desde o fabrico. Para esta finalidade, esta tese investiga como produzir segurança e privacidade destes sistemas desde a produção, e como principal objetivo, concentra-se em fornecer soluções que possam promover a conceção e o desenvolvimento de dispositivos IoT e smart apps., nomeadamente um conjunto de ferramentas chamado Consultor de Segurança da Plataforma de Hardware da IoT (IoT-HarPSecA). Espera-se que o conjunto de ferramentas forneça apoio a designers e programadores em startups durante a conceção e implementação destes sistemas ou que facilite a integração de mecanismos de segurança nos sistemas préexistentes. De modo a alcançar o objetivo proposto, recorre-se à seguinte abordagem. A primeira fase consiste num levantamento exaustivo de diferentes aspetos da segurança e privacidade na IoT, incluindo requisitos de segurança na arquitetura da IoT e ameaças à sua segurança, os seus domínios de aplicação e os ativos cibernéticos associados, a complexidade das vulnerabilidades da IoT e ainda possíveis contramedidas relacionadas com a segurança e privacidade. Evolui-se para uma breve visão geral das plataformas de desenvolvimento de hardware da IoT. As fases seguintes consistem na identificação dos desafios e questões associadas à IoT, que foram restringidos às questões de segurança e privacidade. As demais etapas abordam o processo de pensamento de conceção (design thinking), design e implementação e, finalmente, a avaliação do desempenho. O IoT-HarPSecA é composto por três componentes principais: a Obtenção de Requisitos de Segurança (SRE), Orientações de Melhores Práticas de Segurança (SBPG) e a recomendação de Componentes de Algoritmos Criptográficos Leves (LWCAR) na implementação de software e hardware. O autor implementou uma ferramenta em linha de comandos usando linguagem C++ que serve como interface entre os utilizadores e a IoT-HarPSecA. Esta tese apresenta ainda uma descrição detalhada, desenho e implementação das componentes SRE, SBPG, e LWCAR. Apresenta ainda cenários práticos do mundo real que demostram como o IoT-HarPSecA pode ser utilizado para elicitar requisitos de segurança, gerar boas práticas de segurança (em termos de recomendações de implementação) e recomendar algoritmos criptográficos leves apropriados com base no contributo dos utilizadores. De igual forma, apresenta-se a avaliação do desempenho destes três componentes, demonstrando que o IoT-HarPSecA pode servir como um roteiro para o desenvolvimento seguro da IoT

Personal Privacy Protection within Pervasive RFID Environments

Recent advancements in location tracking technologies have increased the threat to an individual\u27s personal privacy. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology allows for the identification and potentially continuous tracking of an object or individual, without obtaining the individual\u27s consent or even awareness that the tracking is taking place. Although many positive applications for RFID technology exist, for example in the commercial sector and law enforcement, the potential for abuse in the collection and use of personal information through this technology also exists. Location data linked to other types of personal information allows not only the detection of past spatial travel and activity patterns, but also inferences regarding past and future behavior and preferences. Legislative and technological solutions to deal with the increased privacy threat raised by this and similar tracking technologies have been proposed. Such approaches in isolation have significant limitations. This thesis hypothesizes that an approach may be developed with high potential for sufficiently protecting individual privacy in the use of RFID technologies while also strongly supporting marketplace uses of such tags. The research develops and investigates the limits of approaches that might be us,ed to protect privacy in pervasive RFID surveillance environments. The conclusion is ultimately reached that an approach facilitating individual control over the linking of unique RFID tag ID numbers to personal identity implemented though a combination of legal controls and technological capabilities would be a highly desirable option in balancing the interests of both the commercial sector and the information privacy interests of individuals. The specific model developed is responsive to the core ethical principle of autonomy of the individual and as such is also intended to be more responsive to the needs of individual consumers. The technological approach proposed integrated with enabling privacy legislation and private contract law to enable interactive alteration of privacy preferences should result in marketplace solutions acceptable to both potential commercial users and those being tracked

Personal Privacy Protection within Pervasive RFID Environments

Recent advancements in location tracking technologies have increased the threat to an individual\u27s personal privacy. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology allows for the identification and potentially continuous tracking of an object or individual, without obtaining the individual\u27s consent or even awareness that the tracking is taking place. Although many positive applications for RFID technology exist, for example in the commercial sector and law enforcement, the potential for abuse in the collection and use of personal information through this technology also exists. Location data linked to other types of personal information allows not only the detection of past spatial travel and activity patterns, but also inferences regarding past and future behavior and preferences. Legislative and technological solutions to deal with the increased privacy threat raised by this and similar tracking technologies have been proposed. Such approaches in isolation have significant limitations. This thesis hypothesizes that an approach may be developed with high potential for sufficiently protecting individual privacy in the use of RFID technologies while also strongly supporting marketplace uses of such tags. The research develops and investigates the limits of approaches that might be us,ed to protect privacy in pervasive RFID surveillance environments. The conclusion is ultimately reached that an approach facilitating individual control over the linking of unique RFID tag ID numbers to personal identity implemented though a combination of legal controls and technological capabilities would be a highly desirable option in balancing the interests of both the commercial sector and the information privacy interests of individuals. The specific model developed is responsive to the core ethical principle of autonomy of the individual and as such is also intended to be more responsive to the needs of individual consumers. The technological approach proposed integrated with enabling privacy legislation and private contract law to enable interactive alteration of privacy preferences should result in marketplace solutions acceptable to both potential commercial users and those being tracked