12 research outputs found
Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Mesh Networks: A Survey
This book chapter identifies various security threats in wireless mesh
network (WMN). Keeping in mind the critical requirement of security and user
privacy in WMNs, this chapter provides a comprehensive overview of various
possible attacks on different layers of the communication protocol stack for
WMNs and their corresponding defense mechanisms. First, it identifies the
security vulnerabilities in the physical, link, network, transport, application
layers. Furthermore, various possible attacks on the key management protocols,
user authentication and access control protocols, and user privacy preservation
protocols are presented. After enumerating various possible attacks, the
chapter provides a detailed discussion on various existing security mechanisms
and protocols to defend against and wherever possible prevent the possible
attacks. Comparative analyses are also presented on the security schemes with
regards to the cryptographic schemes used, key management strategies deployed,
use of any trusted third party, computation and communication overhead involved
etc. The chapter then presents a brief discussion on various trust management
approaches for WMNs since trust and reputation-based schemes are increasingly
becoming popular for enforcing security in wireless networks. A number of open
problems in security and privacy issues for WMNs are subsequently discussed
before the chapter is finally concluded.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. This chapter is an extension of the
author's previous submission in arXiv submission: arXiv:1102.1226. There are
some text overlaps with the previous submissio
A Distributed Intrusion Detection Scheme about Communication Optimization in Smart Grid
We first propose an efficient communication optimization algorithm in smart grid. Based on the optimization algorithm, we propose an intrusion detection algorithm to detect malicious data and possible cyberattacks. In this scheme, each node acts independently when it processes communication flows or cybersecurity threats. And neither special hardware nor nodes cooperation is needed. In order to justify the feasibility and the availability of this scheme, a series of experiments have been done. The results show that it is feasible and efficient to detect malicious data and possible cyberattacks with less computation and communication cost
Honeypot for Wireless Sensor Networks
People have understood that computer systems need safeguarding and require
knowledge of security principles for their protection. While this has led to solutions
for system components such as malware-protection, firewalls and intrusion detection
systems, the ubiquitous usage of tiny microcomputers appeared at the same time. A
new interconnectivity is on the rise in our lives. Things become “smart” and increasingly
build new networks of devices.
In this context the wireless sensor networks here interact with users and also, vice
versa as well; unprivileged users able to interact with the wireless sensor network may
harm the privileged user as a result. The problem that needs to be solved consists of
possible harm that may be caused by an unprivileged user interacting with the wireless
sensor network of a privileged user and may come via an attack vector targeting a vul-
nerability that may take as long as it is needed and the detection of such mal-behaviour
can only be done if a sensing component is implemented as a kind of tool detecting the
status of the attacked wireless sensor network component and monitors this problem
happening as an event that needs to be researched further on. Innovation in attack
detection comprehension is the key aspect of this work, because it was found to be
a set of hitherto not combined aspects, mechanisms, drafts and sketches, lacking a
central combined outcome. Therefore the contribution of this thesis consists in a span
of topics starting with a summary of attacks, possible countermeasures and a sketch
of the outcome to the design and implementation of a viable product, concluding in an
outlook at possible further work.
The chosen path for the work in this research was experimental prototype construction
following an established research method that first highlights the analysis of attack
vectors to the system component and then evaluates the possibilities in order to im-
prove said method. This led to a concept well known in common large-scale computer
science systems, called a honeypot. Its common definitions and setups were analy-
sed and the concept translation to the wireless sensor network domain was evaluated.
Then the prototype was designed and implemented. This was done by following the ap-
proach set by the science of cybersecurity, which states that the results of experiments
and prototypes lead to improving knowledge intentionally for re-use
Demystifying Internet of Things Security
Break down the misconceptions of the Internet of Things by examining the different security building blocks available in Intel Architecture (IA) based IoT platforms. This open access book reviews the threat pyramid, secure boot, chain of trust, and the SW stack leading up to defense-in-depth. The IoT presents unique challenges in implementing security and Intel has both CPU and Isolated Security Engine capabilities to simplify it. This book explores the challenges to secure these devices to make them immune to different threats originating from within and outside the network. The requirements and robustness rules to protect the assets vary greatly and there is no single blanket solution approach to implement security. Demystifying Internet of Things Security provides clarity to industry professionals and provides and overview of different security solutions What You'll Learn Secure devices, immunizing them against different threats originating from inside and outside the network Gather an overview of the different security building blocks available in Intel Architecture (IA) based IoT platforms Understand the threat pyramid, secure boot, chain of trust, and the software stack leading up to defense-in-depth Who This Book Is For Strategists, developers, architects, and managers in the embedded and Internet of Things (IoT) space trying to understand and implement the security in the IoT devices/platforms
Towards a Secure and Resilient Vehicle Design: Methodologies, Principles and Guidelines
The advent of autonomous and connected vehicles has brought new cyber security challenges to the automotive industry. It requires vehicles to be designed to remain dependable in the occurrence of cyber-attacks. A modern vehicle can contain over 150 computers, over 100 million lines of code, and various connection interfaces such as USB ports, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 4G/5G. The continuous technological advancements within the automotive industry allow safety enhancements due to increased control of, e.g., brakes, steering, and the engine. Although the technology is beneficial, its complexity has the side-effect to give rise to a multitude of vulnerabilities that might leverage the potential for cyber-attacks. Consequently, there is an increase in regulations that demand compliance with vehicle cyber security and resilience requirements that state vehicles should be designed to be resilient to cyber-attacks with the capability to detect and appropriately respond to these attacks. Moreover, increasing requirements for automotive digital forensic capabilities are beginning to emerge. Failures in automated driving functions can be caused by hardware and software failures as well as cyber security issues. It is imperative to investigate the cause of these failures. However, there is currently no clear guidance on how to comply with these regulations from a technical perspective.In this thesis, we propose a methodology to predict and mitigate vulnerabilities in vehicles using a systematic approach for security analysis; a methodology further used to develop a framework ensuring a resilient and secure vehicle design concerning a multitude of analyzed vehicle cyber-attacks. Moreover, we review and analyze scientific literature on resilience techniques, fault tolerance, and dependability for attack detection, mitigation, recovery, and resilience endurance. These techniques are then further incorporated into the above-mentioned framework. Finally, to meet requirements to hastily and securely patch the increasing number of bugs in vehicle software, we propose a versatile framework for vehicle software updates
Kooperative Angriffserkennung in drahtlosen Ad-hoc- und Infrastrukturnetzen: Anforderungsanalyse, Systementwurf und Umsetzung
Mit der zunehmenden Verbreitung mobiler Endgeräte und Dienste ergeben sich auch neue Herausforderungen für ihre Sicherheit. Diese lassen sich nur teilweise mit herkömmlichen Sicherheitsparadigmen und -mechanismen meistern. Die Gründe hierfür sind in den veränderten Voraussetzungen durch die inhärenten Eigenschaften mobiler Systeme zu suchen. Die vorliegende Arbeit thematisiert am Beispiel von Wireless LANs die Entwicklung von Sicherheitsmechanismen für drahtlose Ad-hoc- und Infrastrukturnetze. Sie stellt dabei den umfassenden Schutz der einzelnen Endgeräte in den Vordergrund, die zur Kompensation fehlender infrastruktureller Sicherheitsmaßnahmen miteinander kooperieren.
Den Ausgangspunkt der Arbeit bildet eine Analyse der Charakteristika mobiler Umgebungen, um grundlegende Anforderungen an eine Sicherheitslösung zu identifizieren. Anhand dieser werden existierende Lösungen bewertet und miteinander verglichen. Der so gewonnene Einblick in die Vor- und Nachteile präventiver, reaktiver und angriffstoleranter Mechanismen führt zu der Konzeption einer hybriden universellen Rahmenarchitektur zur Integration beliebiger Sicherheitsmechanismen in einem kooperativen Verbund. Die Validierung des Systementwurfs erfolgt anhand einer zweigeteilten prototypischen Implementierung.
Den ersten Teil bildet die Realisierung eines verteilten Network Intrusion Detection Systems als Beispiel fĂĽr einen Sicherheitsmechanismus. Hierzu wird eine Methodik beschrieben, um anomalie- und missbrauchserkennende Strategien auf beliebige Netzprotokolle anzuwenden. Die Machbarkeit des geschilderten Ansatzes wird am Beispiel von infrastrukturellem WLAN nach IEEE 802.11 demonstriert.
Den zweiten Teil der Validierung bildet der Prototyp einer Kooperations-Middleware auf Basis von Peer-to-Peer-Technologien für die gemeinsame Angriffserkennung lose gekoppelter Endgeräte. Dieser kompensiert bisher fehlende Mechanismen zur optimierten Abbildung des Overlay-Netzes auf die physische Struktur drahtloser Netze, indem er nachträglich die räumliche Position mobiler Knoten in die Auswahl eines Kooperationspartners einbezieht. Die zusätzlich definierte Schnittstelle zu einem Vertrauensmanagementsystem ermöglicht die Etablierung von Vertrauensbeziehungen auf Kooperationsebene als wichtige Voraussetzung für den Einsatz in realen Umgebungen. Als Beispiel für ein Vertrauensmanagementsystem wird der Einsatz von Reputationssystemen zur Bewertung der Verlässlichkeit eines mobilen Knotens diskutiert. Neben einem kurzen Abriss zum Stand der Forschung in diesem Gebiet werden dazu zwei Vorschläge für die Gestaltung eines solchen Systems für mobile Ad-hoc-Netze gemacht.The increasing deployment of mobile devices and accompanying services leads to new security challenges. Due to the changed premises caused by particular features of mobile systems, these obstacles cannot be solved solely by traditional security paradigms and mechanisms. Drawing on the example of wireless LANs, this thesis examines the development of security mechanisms for wireless ad hoc and infrastructural networks. It places special emphasis on the comprehensive protection of each single device as well as compensating missing infrastructural security means by cooperation.
As a starting point this thesis analyses the characteristics of mobile environments to identify basic requirements for a security solution. Based on these requirements existing preventive, reactive and intrusion tolerant approaches are evaluated. This leads to the conception of a hybrid and universal framework to integrate arbitrary security mechanisms within cooperative formations. The resulting system design is then validated by a twofold prototype implementation.
The first part consists of a distributed network intrusion detection system as an example for a security mechanism. After describing a methodology for applying anomaly- as well as misuse-based detection strategies to arbitrary network protocols, the feasibility of this approach is demonstrated for IEEE 802.11 infrastructural wireless LAN.
The second part of the validation is represented by the prototype of a P2P-based cooperation middleware for collaborative intrusion detection by loosely coupled devices. Missing mechanisms for the improved mapping of overlay and physical network structures are compensated by subsequently considering the spatial position of a mobile node when choosing a cooperation partner. Furthermore, an additional interface to an external trust management system enables the establishment of trust relationships as a prerequisite for a deployment in real world scenarios. Reputation systems serve as an example of such a trust management system that can be used to estimate the reliability of a mobile node. After outlining the state of the art, two design patterns of a reputation system for mobile ad hoc networks are presented
Secure Communication in Disaster Scenarios
Während Naturkatastrophen oder terroristischer Anschläge ist die bestehende Kommunikationsinfrastruktur häufig überlastet oder fällt komplett aus. In diesen Situationen können mobile Geräte mithilfe von drahtloser ad-hoc- und unterbrechungstoleranter Vernetzung miteinander verbunden werden, um ein Notfall-Kommunikationssystem für Zivilisten und Rettungsdienste einzurichten. Falls verfügbar, kann eine Verbindung zu Cloud-Diensten im Internet eine wertvolle Hilfe im Krisen- und Katastrophenmanagement sein.
Solche Kommunikationssysteme bergen jedoch ernsthafte Sicherheitsrisiken, da Angreifer versuchen könnten, vertrauliche Daten zu stehlen, gefälschte Benachrichtigungen von Notfalldiensten einzuspeisen oder Denial-of-Service (DoS) Angriffe durchzuführen. Diese Dissertation schlägt neue Ansätze zur Kommunikation in Notfallnetzen von mobilen Geräten vor, die von der Kommunikation zwischen Mobilfunkgeräten bis zu Cloud-Diensten auf Servern im Internet reichen. Durch die Nutzung dieser Ansätze werden die Sicherheit der Geräte-zu-Geräte-Kommunikation, die Sicherheit von Notfall-Apps auf mobilen Geräten und die Sicherheit von Server-Systemen für Cloud-Dienste verbessert
Securing IP Mobility Management for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks
The proliferation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) applications, such as
Internet access and Infotainment, highlights the requirements for improving the underlying
mobility management protocols for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). Mobility
management protocols in VANETs are envisioned to support mobile nodes (MNs), i.e.,
vehicles, with seamless communications, in which service continuity is guaranteed while
vehicles are roaming through different RoadSide Units (RSUs) with heterogeneous wireless
technologies.
Due to its standardization and widely deployment, IP mobility (also called Mobile IP
(MIP)) is the most popular mobility management protocol used for mobile networks including
VANETs. In addition, because of the diversity of possible applications, the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) issues many MIP's standardizations, such as MIPv6 and
NEMO for global mobility, and Proxy MIP (PMIPv6) for localized mobility. However,
many challenges have been posed for integrating IP mobility with VANETs, including the
vehicle's high speeds, multi-hop communications, scalability, and ef ficiency. From a security
perspective, we observe three main challenges: 1) each vehicle's anonymity and location
privacy, 2) authenticating vehicles in multi-hop communications, and 3) physical-layer
location privacy.
In transmitting mobile IPv6 binding update signaling messages, the mobile node's Home
Address (HoA) and Care-of Address (CoA) are transmitted as plain-text, hence they can
be revealed by other network entities and attackers. The mobile node's HoA and CoA
represent its identity and its current location, respectively, therefore revealing an MN's HoA
means breaking its anonymity while revealing an MN's CoA means breaking its location
privacy. On one hand, some existing anonymity and location privacy schemes require
intensive computations, which means they cannot be used in such time-restricted seamless
communications. On the other hand, some schemes only achieve seamless communication
through low anonymity and location privacy levels. Therefore, the trade-off between the
network performance, on one side, and the MN's anonymity and location privacy, on the
other side, makes preservation of privacy a challenging issue. In addition, for PMIPv6
to provide IP mobility in an infrastructure-connected multi-hop VANET, an MN uses a
relay node (RN) for communicating with its Mobile Access Gateway (MAG). Therefore,
a mutual authentication between the MN and RN is required to thwart authentication
attacks early in such scenarios. Furthermore, for a NEMO-based VANET infrastructure,
which is used in public hotspots installed inside moving vehicles, protecting physical-layer
location privacy is a prerequisite for achieving privacy in upper-layers such as the IP-layer. Due to the open nature of the wireless environment, a physical-layer attacker can easily
localize users by employing signals transmitted from these users.
In this dissertation, we address those security challenges by proposing three security
schemes to be employed for different mobility management scenarios in VANETs, namely,
the MIPv6, PMIPv6, and Network Mobility (NEMO) protocols.
First, for MIPv6 protocol and based on the onion routing and anonymizer, we propose
an anonymous and location privacy-preserving scheme (ALPP) that involves two complementary
sub-schemes: anonymous home binding update (AHBU) and anonymous return
routability (ARR). In addition, anonymous mutual authentication and key establishment
schemes have been proposed, to authenticate a mobile node to its foreign gateway and
create a shared key between them. Unlike existing schemes, ALPP alleviates the tradeoff
between the networking performance and the achieved privacy level. Combining onion
routing and the anonymizer in the ALPP scheme increases the achieved location privacy
level, in which no entity in the network except the mobile node itself can identify this
node's location. Using the entropy model, we show that ALPP achieves a higher degree of
anonymity than that achieved by the mix-based scheme. Compared to existing schemes,
the AHBU and ARR sub-schemes achieve smaller computation overheads and thwart both
internal and external adversaries. Simulation results demonstrate that our sub-schemes
have low control-packets routing delays, and are suitable for seamless communications.
Second, for the multi-hop authentication problem in PMIPv6-based VANET, we propose
EM3A, a novel mutual authentication scheme that guarantees the authenticity of both
MN and RN. EM3A thwarts authentication attacks, including Denial of service (DoS), collusion,
impersonation, replay, and man-in-the-middle attacks. EM3A works in conjunction
with a proposed scheme for key establishment based on symmetric polynomials, to generate
a shared secret key between an MN and an RN. This scheme achieves lower revocation
overhead than that achieved by existing symmetric polynomial-based schemes. For a PMIP
domain with n points of attachment and a symmetric polynomial of degree t, our scheme
achieves t x 2^n-secrecy, whereas the existing symmetric polynomial-based authentication
schemes achieve only t-secrecy. Computation and communication overhead analysis as well
as simulation results show that EM3A achieves low authentication delay and is suitable
for seamless multi-hop IP communications. Furthermore, we present a case study of a
multi-hop authentication PMIP (MA-PMIP) implemented in vehicular networks. EM3A
represents the multi-hop authentication in MA-PMIP to mutually authenticate the roaming
vehicle and its relay vehicle. Compared to other authentication schemes, we show that our
MA-PMIP protocol with EM3A achieves 99.6% and 96.8% reductions in authentication
delay and communication overhead, respectively.
Finally, we consider the physical-layer location privacy attacks in the NEMO-based
VANETs scenario, such as would be presented by a public hotspot installed inside a moving
vehicle. We modify the obfuscation, i.e., concealment, and power variability ideas and
propose a new physical-layer location privacy scheme, the fake point-cluster based scheme,
to prevent attackers from localizing users inside NEMO-based VANET hotspots. Involving
the fake point and cluster based sub-schemes, the proposed scheme can: 1) confuse
the attackers by increasing the estimation errors of their Received Signal Strength (RSSs)
measurements, and 2) prevent attackers' monitoring devices from detecting the user's transmitted
signals. We show that our scheme not only achieves higher location privacy, but
also increases the overall network performance. Employing correctness, accuracy, and certainty
as three different metrics, we analytically measure the location privacy achieved by
our proposed scheme. In addition, using extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the
fake point-cluster based scheme can be practically implemented in high-speed VANETs'
scenarios
DAG-Based Attack and Defense Modeling: Don't Miss the Forest for the Attack Trees
This paper presents the current state of the art on attack and defense
modeling approaches that are based on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). DAGs
allow for a hierarchical decomposition of complex scenarios into simple, easily
understandable and quantifiable actions. Methods based on threat trees and
Bayesian networks are two well-known approaches to security modeling. However
there exist more than 30 DAG-based methodologies, each having different
features and goals. The objective of this survey is to present a complete
overview of graphical attack and defense modeling techniques based on DAGs.
This consists of summarizing the existing methodologies, comparing their
features and proposing a taxonomy of the described formalisms. This article
also supports the selection of an adequate modeling technique depending on user
requirements
A General Methodology to Optimize and Benchmark Edge Devices
The explosion of Internet Of Things (IoT), embedded and “smart” devices has also seen the addition of “general purpose” single board computers also referred to as “edge devices.” Determining if one of these generic devices meets the need of a new given task however can be challenging. Software generically written to be portable or plug and play may be too bloated to work properly without significant modification due to much tighter hardware resources. Previous work in this area has been focused on micro or chip-level benchmarking which is mainly useful for chip designers or low level system integrators. A higher or macro level method is needed to not only observe the behavior of these devices under a load but ensure they are appropriately configured for the new task, especially as they begin being integrated on platforms with higher cost of failure like self driving cars or drones. In this research we propose a macro level methodology that iteratively benchmarks and optimizes specific workloads on edge devices. With automation provided by Ansible, a multi stage 2k full factorial experiment and robust analysis process ensures the test workload is maximizing the use of available resources before establishing a final benchmark score. By framing the validation tests with a family of network security monitoring applications an end to end scenario fully exercises and validates the developed process. This also provides an additional vector for future research in the realm of network security. The analysis of the results show the developed process met its original design goals and intentions, with the added fact that the latest edge devices like the XAVIER, TX2 and RPi4 can easily perform as an edge network sensor