Securing the Participation of Safety-Critical SCADA Systems in the Industrial Internet of Things

In the past, industrial control systems were ‘air gapped’ and isolated from more conventional networks. They used specialist protocols, such as Modbus, that are very different from TCP/IP. Individual devices used proprietary operating systems rather than the more familiar Linux or Windows. However, things are changing. There is a move for greater connectivity – for instance so that higher-level enterprise management systems can exchange information that helps optimise production processes. At the same time, industrial systems have been influenced by concepts from the Internet of Things; where the information derived from sensors and actuators in domestic and industrial components can be addressed through network interfaces. This paper identifies a range of cyber security and safety concerns that arise from these developments. The closing sections introduce potential solutions and identify areas for future research

A Cognitive Framework to Secure Smart Cities

The advancement in technology has transformed Cyber Physical Systems and their interface with IoT into a more sophisticated and challenging paradigm. As a result, vulnerabilities and potential attacks manifest themselves considerably more than before, forcing researchers to rethink the conventional strategies that are currently in place to secure such physical systems. This manuscript studies the complex interweaving of sensor networks and physical systems and suggests a foundational innovation in the field. In sharp contrast with the existing IDS and IPS solutions, in this paper, a preventive and proactive method is employed to stay ahead of attacks by constantly monitoring network data patterns and identifying threats that are imminent. Here, by capitalizing on the significant progress in processing power (e.g. petascale computing) and storage capacity of computer systems, we propose a deep learning approach to predict and identify various security breaches that are about to occur. The learning process takes place by collecting a large number of files of different types and running tests on them to classify them as benign or malicious. The prediction model obtained as such can then be used to identify attacks. Our project articulates a new framework for interactions between physical systems and sensor networks, where malicious packets are repeatedly learned over time while the system continually operates with respect to imperfect security mechanisms

Mechatronics & the cloud

Conventionally, the engineering design process has assumed that the design team is able to exercise control over all elements of the design, either directly or indirectly in the case of sub-systems through their specifications. The introduction of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) means that a design team’s ability to have control over all elements of a system is no longer the case, particularly as the actual system configuration may well be being dynamically reconfigured in real-time according to user (and vendor) context and need. Additionally, the integration of the Internet of Things with elements of Big Data means that information becomes a commodity to be autonomously traded by and between systems, again according to context and need, all of which has implications for the privacy of system users. The paper therefore considers the relationship between mechatronics and cloud-basedtechnologies in relation to issues such as the distribution of functionality and user privacy

Cyber physical systems: A smart city perspective

Cyber-physical system (CPS) is a terminology used to describe multiple systems of existing infrastructure and manufacturing system that combines computing technologies (cyber space) into the physical space to integrate human interaction. This paper does a literature review of the work related to CPS in terms of its importance in today’s world. Further, this paper also looks at the importance of CPS and its relationship with internet of things (IoT). CPS is a very broad area and is used in variety of fields and some of these major fields are evaluated. Additionally, the implementation of CPS and IoT is major enabler for smart cities and various examples of such implementation in the context of Dubai and UAE are researched. Finally, security issues related to CPS in general are also reviewed

A Survey of Using Machine Learning in IoT Security and the Challenges Faced by Researchers

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become more popular in the last 15 years as it has significantly improved and gained control in multiple fields. We are nowadays surrounded by billions of IoT devices that directly integrate with our lives, some of them are at the center of our homes, and others control sensitive data such as military fields, healthcare, and datacenters, among others. This popularity makes factories and companies compete to produce and develop many types of those devices without caring about how secure they are. On the other hand, IoT is considered a good insecure environment for cyber thefts. Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) also gained more importance in the last 15 years; they achieved success in the networking security field too. IoT has some similar security requirements such as traditional networks, but with some differences according to its characteristics, some specific security features, and environmental limitations, some differences are made such as low energy resources, limited computational capability, and small memory. These limitations inspire some researchers to search for the perfect and lightweight security ways which strike a balance between performance and security. This survey provides a comprehensive discussion about using machine learning and deep learning in IoT devices within the last five years. It also lists the challenges faced by each model and algorithm. In addition, this survey shows some of the current solutions and other future directions and suggestions. It also focuses on the research that took the IoT environment limitations into consideration