Comparison of ZigBee Replay Attacks Using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral and USB Radio

Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks are a prevalent solution for communication among embedded devices. ZigBee is a leading network protocol stack based on the low-rate IEEE 802.15.4 standard that operates smart utility meters, residential and commercial building automation, and heath care networks. Such networks are essential, but low-rate, low-cost hardware is challenging to protect because end devices have tight limitations on hardware cost, memory use, and power consumption. KillerBee is a python-based framework for attacking ZigBee and other 802.15.4 networks that makes traffic eavesdropping, packet replay, and denial of service attacks straightforward to conduct. Recent works investigate software-defined radios as an even more versatile attack platform. Software defined radios can operate with greater flexibility and at greater transmit power than traditional network hardware. Software-defined radios also enable novel physical-layer attacks including reflexive jamming and synchronization header manipulation that are not possible with traditional hardware. This research implements a replay attack against a ZigBee device using a software defined radio. Replay attacks consist of an attacker recording legitimate traffic on a network and then replaying that traffic at will to cause malicious effects. Replay attacks can be very disruptive to operational systems, from turning valves in industrial controls systems to disarming door locks. Specifically, how software-defined radios can extend the effective attack range far beyond what is possible with hardware currently utilized by KillerBee is investigated. A software defined radio is tested with both directed and omnidirectional antennas and the effective attack range is compared to that of a USB radio. Tests are conducted both line-of-sight outdoors and through interior walls. The replay attack is implemented with beacon request frames

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems

Byzantine Attack and Defense in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Survey

The Byzantine attack in cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS), also known as the spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack in the literature, is one of the key adversaries to the success of cognitive radio networks (CRNs). In the past couple of years, the research on the Byzantine attack and defense strategies has gained worldwide increasing attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey and tutorial on the recent advances in the Byzantine attack and defense for CSS in CRNs. Specifically, we first briefly present the preliminaries of CSS for general readers, including signal detection techniques, hypothesis testing, and data fusion. Second, we analyze the spear and shield relation between Byzantine attack and defense from three aspects: the vulnerability of CSS to attack, the obstacles in CSS to defense, and the games between attack and defense. Then, we propose a taxonomy of the existing Byzantine attack behaviors and elaborate on the corresponding attack parameters, which determine where, who, how, and when to launch attacks. Next, from the perspectives of homogeneous or heterogeneous scenarios, we classify the existing defense algorithms, and provide an in-depth tutorial on the state-of-the-art Byzantine defense schemes, commonly known as robust or secure CSS in the literature. Furthermore, we highlight the unsolved research challenges and depict the future research directions.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutoiral