IoT Security Vulnerabilities and Predictive Signal Jamming Attack Analysis in LoRaWAN

Internet of Things (IoT) gains popularity in recent times due to its flexibility, usability, diverse applicability and ease of deployment. However, the issues related to security is less explored. The IoT devices are light weight in nature and have low computation power, low battery life and low memory. As incorporating security features are resource expensive, IoT devices are often found to be less protected and in recent times, more IoT devices have been routinely attacked due to high profile security flaws. This paper aims to explore the security vulnerabilities of IoT devices particularly that use Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs). In this work, LoRaWAN based IoT security vulnerabilities are scrutinised and loopholes are identified. An attack was designed and simulated with the use of a predictive model of the device data generation. The paper demonstrated that by predicting the data generation model, jamming attack can be carried out to block devices from sending data successfully. This research will aid in the continual development of any necessary countermeasures and mitigations for LoRaWAN and LPWAN functionality of IoT networks in general

LoRaWAN device security and energy optimization

Resource-constrained devices are commonly connected to a network and become things that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). Many industries are interested in cost-effective, reliable, and cyber secure sensor networks due to the ever-increasing connectivity and benefits of IoT devices. The full advantages of IoT devices are seen in a long-range and remote context. However, current IoT platforms show many obstacles to achieve a balance between power efficiency and cybersecurity. Battery-powered sensor nodes can reliably send data over long distances with minimal power draw by adopting Long-Range (LoRa) wireless radio frequency technology. With LoRa, these devices can stay active for many years due to a low data bit rate and low power draw during device sleep states. An improvement built on top of LoRa wireless technology, Long-Range Wide Area Networks (LoRaWAN), introduces integrity and confidentiality of the data sent within the IoT network. Although data sent from a LoRaWAN device is encrypted, protocol and implementation vulnerabilities still exist within the network, resulting in security risks to the whole system. In this research, solutions to these vulnerabilities are proposed and implemented on a LoRaWAN testbed environment that contains devices, gateways, and servers. Configurations that involve the transmission of data using AES Round Reduction, Join Scheduling, and Metadata Hiding are proposed in this work. A power consumption analysis is performed on the implemented configurations, resulting in a LoRaWAN system that balances cybersecurity and battery life. The resulting configurations may be harnessed for usage in the safe, secure, and efficient provisioning of LoRaWAN devices in technologies such as Smart-Industry, Smart-Environment, Smart-Agriculture, Smart-Universities, Smart-Cities, et

Despliegue de red LPWAN en entorno industrial con movilidad

[ES] La tecnología que comenzó a conectar masivamente a las personas hace décadas se ha desarrollado para conectar dispositivos también. La red de conectividad global resultante se denomina el internet de las cosas. Tiene aplicaciones útiles en todos los sectores de la economía y está preparado para liderar la cuarta revolución industrial, que busca la eficiencia a través de la recopilación de datos. Para lograrlo se necesita un número cada vez mayor de dispositivos, que deben ser eficientes energéticamente para permitir que estas redes sean viables tanto económica como ambientalmente. Cubrir grandes espacios con la menor cantidad posible de recursos de hardware también ayuda a reducir los costes de despliegue, y aquí es exactamente donde entran en juego las redes LPWAN (Low-Power Wide-Area Network). El objetivo de este proyecto es crear una herramienta que permita el despliegue rápido y sencillo de una red LPWAN en un entorno industrial en un contexto de movilidad. El autor ha seleccionado la tecnología LPWAN que mejor se adapta al proyecto (LoRaWAN) y una solución basada en ella, ChirpStack. Se ha desarrollado una aplicación web funcional como candidata ideal para ser la herramienta que permita despliegues de movilidad LPWAN. El uso de la aplicación web desarrollada conlleva además una mayor eficiencia de costes, ya que ahorra al usuario múltiples pasos de configuración tediosos antes de activar un nuevo nodo. Esta herramienta también logra una mayor abstracción de la tecnología de comunicaciones que se está implementando, haciéndola accesible a un mercado aún mayor. Un análisis de los resultados obtenidos destaca el éxito en la consecución de dos objetivos secundarios, la reducción del tiempo de activación del dispositivo final y la abstracción de la tecnología adyacente, además de ser una herramienta de movilidad válida para el despliegue industrial de redes LPWAN.[EN] The technology that started massively connecting people decades ago has been developed to begin connecting devices as well. The resulting global connectivity network is called the Internet of Things. It has useful applications in every sector and is set to lead the fourth industrial revolution. Efficiency through data gathering is the goal of an ever-increasing number of devices. Energy efficiency is key to make this network scalable without skyrocketing electrical consumption. Covering big spaces with as few hardware resources as possible also helps at reducing costs. This is exactly where Low-Power Wide-Area Networks come into play. The aim of this project is to create a tool that allows the fast and easy deployment of a LPWAN network in an industrial environment in a mobility context. The author has selected the LPWAN technology that best fits the project (LoRaWAN) and a solution based on it, ChirpStack. A functional web application has been developed as an ideal candidate to be the tool that allows LPWAN mobility deployments. Further cost efficiency is unlocked by the developed web application, which saves the user multiple tedious configuration steps before activating a new end-device. This tool also achieves further abstraction from the technology that is being implementing, making it accessible to an even greater market. An analysis of the results obtained highlights the success in achieving both secondary goals, a reduction in end-device activation time and an abstraction of the telecommunications technology, apart from being a mobility tool for industrial deployment of LPWAN networks.Hernández Álvarez, R. (2022). Despliegue de red LPWAN en entorno industrial con movilidad. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/181897TFG

Integrated Satellite-terrestrial networks for IoT: LoRaWAN as a Flying Gateway

When the Internet of Things (IoT) was introduced, it causes an immense change in human life. Recently, different IoT emerging use cases, which will involve an even higher number of connected devices aimed at collecting and sending data with different purposes and over different application scenarios, such as smart city, smart factory, and smart agriculture. In some cases, the terrestrial infrastructure is not enough to guarantee the typical performance indicators due to its design and intrinsic limitations. Coverage is an example, where the terrestrial infrastructure is not able to cover certain areas such as remote and rural areas. Flying technologies, such as communication satellites and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), can contribute to overcome the limitations of the terrestrial infrastructure, offering wider coverage, higher resilience and availability, and improving user\u2019s Quality of Experience (QoE). IoT can benefit from the UAVs and satellite integration in many ways, also beyond the coverage extension and the increase of the available bandwidth that these objects can offer. This thesis proposes the integration of both IoT and UAVs to guarantee the increased coverage in hard to reach and out of coverage areas. Its core focus addresses the development of the IoT flying gateway and data mule and testing both approaches to show their feasibility. The first approach for the integration of IoT and UAV results in the implementing of LoRa flying gateway with the aim of increasing the IoT communication protocols\u2019 coverage area to reach remote and rural areas. This flying gateway examines the feasibility for extending the coverage in a remote area and transmitting the data to the IoT cloud in real-time. Moreover, it considers the presence of a satellite between the gateway and the final destination for areas with no Internet connectivity and communication means such as WiFi, Ethernet, 4G, or LTE. The experimental results have shown that deploying a LoRa gateway on board a flying drone is an ideal option for the extension of the IoT network coverage in rural and remote areas. The second approach for the integration of the aforementioned technologies is the deployment of IoT data mule concept for LoRa networks. The difference here is the storage of the data on board of the gateway and not transmitting the data to the IoT cloud in real time. The aim of this approach is to receive the data from the LoRa sensors installed in a remote area, store them in the gateway up until this flying gateway is connected to the Internet. The experimental results have shown the feasibility of our flying data mule in terms of signal quality, data delivery, power consumption and gateway status. The third approach considers the security aspect in LoRa networks. The possible physical attacks that can be performed on any LoRa device can be performed once its location is revealed. Position estimation was carried out using one of the LoRa signal features: RSSI. The values of RSSI are fed to the Trilateration localization algorithm to estimate the device\u2019s position. Different outdoor tests were done with and without the drone, and the results have shown that RSSI is a low cost option for position estimation that can result in a slight error due to different environmental conditions that affect the signal quality. In conclusion, by adopting both IoT technology and UAV, this thesis advances the development of flying LoRa gateway and LoRa data mule for the aim of increasing the coverage of LoRa networks to reach rural and remote areas. Moreover, this research could be considered as the first step towards the development of high quality and performance LoRa flying gateway to be tested and used in massive LoRa IoT networks in rural and remote areas