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

An eco-friendly hybrid urban computing network combining community-based wireless LAN access and wireless sensor networking

Computer-enhanced smart environments, distributed environmental monitoring, wireless communication, energy conservation and sustainable technologies, ubiquitous access to Internet-located data and services, user mobility and innovation as a tool for service differentiation are all significant contemporary research subjects and societal developments. This position paper presents the design of a hybrid municipal network infrastructure that, to a lesser or greater degree, incorporates aspects from each of these topics by integrating a community-based Wi-Fi access network with Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) functionality. The former component provides free wireless Internet connectivity by harvesting the Internet subscriptions of city inhabitants. To minimize session interruptions for mobile clients, this subsystem incorporates technology that achieves (near-)seamless handover between Wi-Fi access points. The WSN component on the other hand renders it feasible to sense physical properties and to realize the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. This in turn scaffolds the development of value-added end-user applications that are consumable through the community-powered access network. The WSN subsystem invests substantially in ecological considerations by means of a green distributed reasoning framework and sensor middleware that collaboratively aim to minimize the network's global energy consumption. Via the discussion of two illustrative applications that are currently being developed as part of a concrete smart city deployment, we offer a taste of the myriad of innovative digital services in an extensive spectrum of application domains that is unlocked by the proposed platform

IETF standardization in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT): a survey

Smart embedded objects will become an important part of what is called the Internet of Things. However, the integration of embedded devices into the Internet introduces several challenges, since many of the existing Internet technologies and protocols were not designed for this class of devices. In the past few years, there have been many efforts to enable the extension of Internet technologies to constrained devices. Initially, this resulted in proprietary protocols and architectures. Later, the integration of constrained devices into the Internet was embraced by IETF, moving towards standardized IP-based protocols. In this paper, we will briefly review the history of integrating constrained devices into the Internet, followed by an extensive overview of IETF standardization work in the 6LoWPAN, ROLL and CoRE working groups. This is complemented with a broad overview of related research results that illustrate how this work can be extended or used to tackle other problems and with a discussion on open issues and challenges. As such the aim of this paper is twofold: apart from giving readers solid insights in IETF standardization work on the Internet of Things, it also aims to encourage readers to further explore the world of Internet-connected objects, pointing to future research opportunities

IPv6 Network Mobility

Network Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting has been used since before the days of the Internet as we know it today. Authentication asks the question, “Who or what are you?” Authorization asks, “What are you allowed to do?” And fi nally, accounting wants to know, “What did you do?” These fundamental security building blocks are being used in expanded ways today. The fi rst part of this two-part series focused on the overall concepts of AAA, the elements involved in AAA communications, and highlevel approaches to achieving specifi c AAA goals. It was published in IPJ Volume 10, No. 1[0]. This second part of the series discusses the protocols involved, specifi c applications of AAA, and considerations for the future of AAA

On secure communication in integrated internet and heterogeneous multi-hop wireless networks.

Integration of the Internet with a Cellular Network, WMAN, WLAN, and MANET presents an exceptional promise by having co-existence of conventional WWANs/WMANs/WLANs with wireless ad hoc networks to provide ubiquitous communication. We call such integrated networks providing internet accessibility for mobile users as heterogeneous multi-hop wireless networks where the Internet and wireless infrastructure such as WLAN access points (APs) and base stations (BSs) constitute the backbone for various emerging wireless networks (e.g., multi-hop WLAN and ad hoc networks. Earlier approaches for the Internet connectivity either provide only unidirectional connectivity for ad hoc hosts or cause high overhead as well as delay for providing full bi-directional connections. In this dissertation, a new protocol is proposed for integrated Internet and ad hoc networks for supporting bi-directional global connectivity for ad hoc hosts. In order to provide efficient mobility management for mobile users in an integrated network, a mobility management protocol called multi-hop cellular IP (MCIP) has been proposed to provide a micro-mobility management framework for heterogeneous multi-hop network. The micro-mobility is achieved by differentiating the local domain from the global domain. At the same time, the MCIP protocol extends Mobile IP protocol for providing macro-mobility support between local domains either for single hop MSs or multi-hop MSs. In the MCIP protocol, new location and mobility management approaches are developed for tracking mobile stations, paging, and handoff management. This dissertation also provides a security protocol for integrated Internet and MANET to establish distributed trust relationships amongst mobile infrastructures. This protocol protects communication between two mobile stations against the attacks either from the Internet side or from wireless side. Moreover, a secure macro/micro-mobility protocol (SM3P) have been introduced and evaluated for preventing mobility-related attacks either for single-hop MSs or multi-hop MSs. In the proposed SM3P, mobile IP security has been extended for supporting macro-mobility across local domains through the process of multi-hop registration and authentication. In a local domain, a certificate-based authentication achieves the effective routing and micro-mobility protection from a range of potential security threats