Quality-of-service in wireless sensor networks: state-of-the-art and future directions

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are one of today’s most prominent instantiations of the ubiquituous computing paradigm. In order to achieve high levels of integration, WSNs need to be conceived considering requirements beyond the mere system’s functionality. While Quality-of-Service (QoS) is traditionally associated with bit/data rate, network throughput, message delay and bit/packet error rate, we believe that this concept is too strict, in the sense that these properties alone do not reflect the overall quality-ofservice provided to the user/application. Other non-functional properties such as scalability, security or energy sustainability must also be considered in the system design. This paper identifies the most important non-functional properties that affect the overall quality of the service provided to the users, outlining their relevance, state-of-the-art and future research directions

An examination of the impact of residential security measures on the incidence of residential burglary in two selected northern suburbs of Johannesburg: a security risk management approach

Motivation This project was of specific importance to the private security industry, victims of residential burglary, community policing forums and the South African Police Service in providing detailed information regarding recommendations of how to manage and combat residential burglary in two selected northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Problem statement Residential burglary is categorised in the top three highest reported crimes according to the official South African Police Service statistics for the 2006/7 financial years. A series of victim interviews, docket analysis, case plotting and residential security audit surveys were conducted to determine the extent (or lack thereof) of security measures at a burgled residence in the selected area. Approach Field data was collected through docket analysis, plotting crime scenes (descriptive mapping), victim interviews and residential security audit surveys. Results The majority of victims of burglary interviewed did not have the minimum security system (integrated measures) in place. Those victims, who had security measures, appeared not to have made or implemented effective use of them. Conclusion Security at a residence extends beyond just the immediate house area and the focus (security risk assessment) should start with the immediate neighbourhood (community) area working inwards towards the property perimeter (boundary), inner perimeter (garden area) and then finally the immediate house area.CRIMINOLOGYMTECH: SECURITY RISK MA

NETWORK TRAFFIC CHARACTERIZATION AND INTRUSION DETECTION IN BUILDING AUTOMATION SYSTEMS

The goal of this research was threefold: (1) to learn the operational trends and behaviors of a realworld building automation system (BAS) network for creating building device models to detect anomalous behaviors and attacks, (2) to design a framework for evaluating BA device security from both the device and network perspectives, and (3) to leverage new sources of building automation device documentation for developing robust network security rules for BAS intrusion detection systems (IDSs). These goals were achieved in three phases, first through the detailed longitudinal study and characterization of a real university campus building automation network (BAN) and with the application of machine learning techniques on field level traffic for anomaly detection. Next, through the systematization of literature in the BAS security domain to analyze cross protocol device vulnerabilities, attacks, and defenses for uncovering research gaps as the foundational basis of our proposed BA device security evaluation framework. Then, to evaluate our proposed framework the largest multiprotocol BAS testbed discussed in the literature was built and several side-channel vulnerabilities and software/firmware shortcomings were exposed. Finally, through the development of a semi-automated specification gathering, device documentation extracting, IDS rule generating framework that leveraged PICS files and BIM models.Ph.D

Enabling medicine reuse using a digital time temperature humidity sensor in an internet of pharmaceutical things concept

Medicinal waste due to improper handling of unwanted medicines creates health and environmental risks. However, the re-dispensing of unused prescribed medicines from patients seems to be accepted by stakeholders when quality and safety requirements are met. Reusing dispensed medicines may help reduce waste, but a comprehensive validation method is not generally available. The design of a novel digital time temperature and humidity indicator based on an Internet of Pharmaceutical Things concept is proposed to facilitate the validation, and a prototype is presented using smart sensors with cloud connectivity acting as the key technology for verifying and enabling the reuse of returned medicines. Deficiency of existing technologies is evaluated based on the results of this development, and recommendations for future research are suggested

Novel Attacks and Defenses for Enterprise Internet-of-Things (E-IoT) Systems

This doctoral dissertation expands upon the field of Enterprise Internet-of-Things (E-IoT) systems, one of the most ubiquitous and under-researched fields of smart systems. E-IoT systems are specialty smart systems designed for sophisticated automation applications (e.g., multimedia control, security, lighting control). E-IoT systems are often closed source, costly, require certified installers, and are more robust for their specific applications. This dissertation begins with an analysis of the current E-IoT threat landscape and introduces three novel attacks and defenses under-studied software and protocols heavily linked to E-IoT systems. For each layer, we review the literature for the threats, attacks, and countermeasures. Based on the systematic knowledge we obtain from the literature review, we propose three novel attacks and countermeasures to protect E-IoT systems. In the first attack, we present PoisonIvy, several attacks developed to show that malicious E-IoT drivers can be used to compromise E-IoT. In response to PoisonIvy threats, we describe Ivycide, a machine-learning network-based solution designed to defend E-IoT systems against E-IoT driver threats. As multimedia control is a significant application of E-IoT, we introduce is HDMI-Walk, a novel attack vector designed to demonstrate that HDMI\u27s Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) protocol can be used to compromise multiple devices through a single connection. To defend devices from this threat, we introduce HDMI-Watch, a standalone intrusion detection system (IDS) designed to defend HDMI-enabled devices from HDMI-Walk-style attacks. Finally, this dissertation evaluates the security of E-IoT proprietary protocols with LightingStrike, a series of attacks used to demonstrate that popular E-IoT proprietary communication protocols are insecure. To address LightningStrike threats, we introduce LGuard, a complete defense framework designed to defend E-IoT systems from LightingStrike-style attacks using computer vision, traffic obfuscation, and traffic analysis techniques. For each contribution, all of the defense mechanisms proposed are implemented without any modification to the underlying hardware or software. All attacks and defenses in this dissertation were performed with implementations on widely-used E-IoT devices and systems. We believe that the research presented in this dissertation has notable implications on the security of E-IoT systems by exposing novel threat vectors, raising awareness, and motivating future E-IoT system security research

Software based deployment of encryption keys in wireless sensor networks.

Sensor networks are just in their infancy. Their use will continue to grow as the technology becomes cheaper and more efficient. A current shortcoming with sensor networks is the inability to efficiently provide secure communications. As sensor networks are deployed to monitor and control systems, the security of communications will become a more important. This thesis proposes a new approach to key establishment and renewal through the use of point-to-point keys and software verification and validation to ensure the integrity of two nodes. Sensor networks exist on limited resources, so power efficiency is a concern. The proposed protocol allows for the use of small keys instead of large pre-distributed keys. This thesis explores the design and implementation of a new point-to-point key generation and renewal algorithm. The main contribution is the development of an algorithm that utilizes a software integrity check to ensure the validity of a node. The thesis also utilizes a simulated sensor network to test and validate the new software algorithm

Cybersecurity and the Digital Health: An Investigation on the State of the Art and the Position of the Actors

Cybercrime is increasingly exposing the health domain to growing risk. The push towards a strong connection of citizens to health services, through digitalization, has undisputed advantages. Digital health allows remote care, the use of medical devices with a high mechatronic and IT content with strong automation, and a large interconnection of hospital networks with an increasingly effective exchange of data. However, all this requires a great cybersecurity commitment—a commitment that must start with scholars in research and then reach the stakeholders. New devices and technological solutions are increasingly breaking into healthcare, and are able to change the processes of interaction in the health domain. This requires cybersecurity to become a vital part of patient safety through changes in human behaviour, technology, and processes, as part of a complete solution. All professionals involved in cybersecurity in the health domain were invited to contribute with their experiences. This book contains contributions from various experts and different fields. Aspects of cybersecurity in healthcare relating to technological advance and emerging risks were addressed. The new boundaries of this field and the impact of COVID-19 on some sectors, such as mhealth, have also been addressed. We dedicate the book to all those with different roles involved in cybersecurity in the health domain

SoK: Acoustic Side Channels

We provide a state-of-the-art analysis of acoustic side channels, cover all the significant academic research in the area, discuss their security implications and countermeasures, and identify areas for future research. We also make an attempt to bridge side channels and inverse problems, two fields that appear to be completely isolated from each other but have deep connections.Comment: 16 page

Medicines Reuse

This reprint examines the concept of medicines reuse, the idea that unused medication returned by one patient can be re-dispensed for use by another. Ten papers written by over 20 authors examine a range of issues related to medicines reuse including the circular economy of the pharmaceutical supply chain; the prevalence of unused medicines or medication waste within patients' homes; people's views about the causes of medication waste and the potential for medicines reuse; what might influence people to reuse medicines in the future; how sensing technologies might facilitate medicines reuse; and the effect of including sensing technologies on people's willingness to consider medicines reuse

DI-SEC: Distributed Security Framework for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are deployed for monitoring in a range of critical domains (e.g., health care, military, critical infrastructure). Accordingly, these WSNs should be resilient to attacks. The current approach to defending against malicious threats is to develop and deploy a specific defense mechanism for a specific attack. However, the problem with this traditional approach to defending sensor networks is that the solution for one attack (i.e., Jamming attack) does not defend against other attacks (e.g., Sybil and Selective Forwarding). This work addresses the challenges with the traditional approach to securing sensor networks and presents a comprehensive framework, Di-Sec, that can defend against all known and forthcoming attacks. At the heart of Di-Sec lies the monitoring core (M-Core), which is an extensible and lightweight layer that gathers information and statistics relevant for creating defense modules. Along with Di-Sec, a new user-friendly domain-specific language was developed, the M-Core Control Language (MCL). Using the MCL, a user can implement new defense mechanisms without the overhead of learning the details of the underlying software architecture (i.e., TinyOS, Di-Sec). Hence, the MCL expedites the development of sensor defense mechanisms by significantly simplifying the coding process for developers. The Di-Sec framework has been implemented and tested on real sensors to evaluate its feasibility and performance. Our evaluation shows that Di-Sec is feasible on today’s resource-limited sensors and has a nominal overhead. Furthermore, we illustrate the functionality of Di-Sec by implementing four detection and defense mechanisms for attacks at various layers of the communication stack