Smartphone: The Ultimate IoT and IoE Device

Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Everything (IoE) are emerging communication concepts that will interconnect a variety of devices (including smartphones, home appliances, sensors, and other network devices), people, data, and processes and allow them to communicate with each other seamlessly. These new concepts can be applied in many application domains such as healthcare, transportation, and supply chain management (SCM), to name a few, and allow users to get real-time information such as location-based services, disease management, and tracking. The smartphone-enabling technologies such as built-in sensors, Bluetooth, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking, and near-field communications (NFC) allow it to be an integral part of IoT and IoE world and the mostly used device in these environments. However, its use imposes severe security and privacy threats, because the smartphone usually contains and communicates sensitive private data. In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT and IoE technologies, their application domains, IoT structure and architecture, the use of smartphones in IoT and IoE, and the difference between IoT networks and mobile cellular networks. We also provide a concise overview of future opportunities and challenges in IoT and IoE environments and focus more on the security and privacy threats of using the smartphone in IoT and IoE networks with a suggestion of some countermeasures

A Survey on Integrated Circuit Trojans

Traditionally, computer security has been associated with the software security, or the information-data security. Surprisingly, the hardware on which the software executes or the information stored-processed-transmitted has been assumed to be a trusted base of security. The main building blocks of any electronic device are Integrated circuits (ICs) which form the fabric of a computer system. Lately, the use of ICs has expanded from handheld calculators and personal computers (PCs) to smartphones, servers, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. However, this significant growth in the IC market created intense competition among IC vendors, leading to new trends in IC manufacturing. System-on-chip (SoC) design based on intellectual property (IP), a globally spread supply chain of production and distribution of ICs are the foremost of these trends. The emerging trends have resulted in many security and trust weaknesses and vulnerabilities, in computer systems. This includes Hardware Trojans attacks, side-channel attacks, Reverse-engineering, IP piracy, IC counterfeiting, micro probing, physical tampering, and acquisition of private or valuable assets by debugging and testing. IC security and trust vulnerabilities may cause loss of private information, modified/altered functions, which may cause a great economical hazard and big damage to society. Thus, it is crucial to examine the security and trust threats existing in the IC lifecycle and build defense mechanisms against IC Trojan threats. In this article, we examine the IC supply chain and define the possible IC Trojan threats for the parties involved. Then we survey the latest progress of research in the area of countermeasures against the IC Trojan attacks and discuss the challenges and expectations in this area. Keywords: IC supply chain, IC security, IP privacy, hardware trojans, IC trojans DOI: 10.7176/CEIS/12-2-01 Publication date: April 30th 202

Survey and Systematization of Secure Device Pairing

Secure Device Pairing (SDP) schemes have been developed to facilitate secure communications among smart devices, both personal mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Comparison and assessment of SDP schemes is troublesome, because each scheme makes different assumptions about out-of-band channels and adversary models, and are driven by their particular use-cases. A conceptual model that facilitates meaningful comparison among SDP schemes is missing. We provide such a model. In this article, we survey and analyze a wide range of SDP schemes that are described in the literature, including a number that have been adopted as standards. A system model and consistent terminology for SDP schemes are built on the foundation of this survey, which are then used to classify existing SDP schemes into a taxonomy that, for the first time, enables their meaningful comparison and analysis.The existing SDP schemes are analyzed using this model, revealing common systemic security weaknesses among the surveyed SDP schemes that should become priority areas for future SDP research, such as improving the integration of privacy requirements into the design of SDP schemes. Our results allow SDP scheme designers to create schemes that are more easily comparable with one another, and to assist the prevention of persisting the weaknesses common to the current generation of SDP schemes.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, accepted at IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 2017 (Volume: PP, Issue: 99

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