Insecurity of a provably secure and lightweight certificateless signature scheme for IIoT environments

Recently, Karati et al. presented a lightweight certificateless signature scheme for industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments, and claimed the scheme was provably secure in the standard model. In this paper, it is indicated that the scheme is not secure by showing two concrete attacks

On the Security of a Certificateless Strong Designated Verifier Signature Scheme

Recently, Chen et al. proposed the first non-delegatable certificateless strong designated verifier signature scheme and claimed that their scheme achieves all security requirements. However, in this paper, we disprove their claim and present a concrete attack which shows that their proposed scheme is forgeable. More precisely, we show that there exist adversaries who are able to forge any signer\u27s signature for any designated verifier on any message of his choice

Securing IT/OT Links for Low Power IIoT Devices:Design considerations for industry 4.0

Manufacturing is facing a host of new security challenges due to the convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) in the industry. This article addresses the challenges that arise due to the use of low power Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices in modular manufacturing systems of Industry 4.0. First, we analyze security challenges concerning the manufacturing execution system (MES) and programmable logic controllers (PLC) in IIoT through a selective literature review. Second, we present an exploratory case study to determine a protocol for cryptographic key management and key exchange suitable for the Smart Production Lab of Aalborg University (a learning cyber-physical factory). Finally, we combine the findings of the case study with a quality function deployment (QFD) method to determine design requirements for Industry 4.0. We identify specific requirements from both the high-level domain of factory capabilities and the low-level domain of cryptography and translate requirements between these domains using a QFD analysis. The recommendations for designing a secure smart factory focus on how security can be implemented for low power and low-cost IIoT devices. Even though there have been a few studies on securing IT to OT data exchange, we conclude that the field is not yet in a state where it can be applied in practice with confidence

Analyzing the Impacts of Emerging Technologies on Workforce Skills: A Case Study of Industrial Engineering in the Context of the Industrial Internet of Things

New technologies can result in major disruptions and change paradigms that were once well established. Methods have been developed to forecast new technologies and to analyze the impacts of them in terms of processes, products, and services. However, the current literature does not provide answers on how to forecast changes in terms of skills and knowledge, given an emerging technology. This thesis aims to fill this literature gap by developing a structured method to forecast the required set of skills for emerging technologies and to compare it with the current skills of the workforce. The method relies on the breakdown of the emerging technology into smaller components, so then skills can be identified for each component. A case study was conducted to implement and test the proposed method. In this case study, the impacts of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) on engineering skills and knowledge were assessed. Text data analytics validated IIoT as an emerging technology, thus justifying the case study based on engineering and manufacturing discussions. The set of skills required for IIoT was compared to the current skills developed by Industrial Engineering students at the University of Windsor. Text data analytics was also used to evaluate the importance of each IIoT component by measuring how associated individual components are to IIoT. Therefore, existing skill gaps between the current Industrial Engineering program and IIoT requirements were not only mapped, but they were also given weights