Assessment of attribute-based credentials for privacy-preserving road traffic services in smart cities

Smart cities involve the provision of advanced services for road traffic users. Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are a promising communication technology in this regard. Preservation of privacy is crucial in these services to foster their acceptance. Previous approaches have mainly focused on PKI-based or ID-based cryptography. However, these works have not fully addressed the minimum information disclosure principle. Thus, questions such as how to prove that a driver is a neighbour of a given zone, without actually disclosing his identity or real address, remain unaddressed. A set of techniques, referred to as Attribute-Based Credentials (ABCs), have been proposed to address this need in traditional computation scenarios. In this paper, we explore the use of ABCs in the vehicular context. For this purpose, we focus on a set of use cases from European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Basic Set of Applications, specially appropriate for the early development of smart cities. We assess which ABC techniques are suitable for this scenario, focusing on three representative ones—Idemix, U-Prove and VANET-updated Persiano systems. Our experimental results show that they are feasible in VANETs considering state-of-the-art technologies, and that Idemix is the most promising technique for most of the considered use cases.This work was supported by the MINECO grant TIN2013-46469-R (SPINY: Security and Privacy in the Internet of You); the CAM grant S2013/ICE-3095 (CIBERDINE: Cybersecurity, Data, and Risks) and by the MINECO grant TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV - Security mechanisms for fog computing: advanced security for devices). Jose Maria de Fuentes and Lorena Gonzalez were also supported by the Programa de Ayudas para la Movilidad of Carlos III University of Madrid

Privacy in location-based services

Während der letzten Jahre erfuhren mobile Geräte durch grössere Speicher, der Entwicklung schnellerer Prozessoren und höherer Übertragungsraten, um nur einige der wichtigsten Performanceparameter zu nennen, einen enormen Entwicklungsschub. Gleichzeitig sind die unterschiedlichen Positionierungssysteme mittlerweile ausgereift und klein genug, um in mobile Geräte verbaut werden zu können. Erst durch die Möglichkeit der Zusammenführung von solchen ausgereiften Positionierungs- mit existierenden Telekommunikationstechnologien kann die Basis für eine neue Generation kontextsensitiver Anwendungen und entsprechender Geschaeftsmodelle geschaffen werden. Abgesehen von den technischen Massnahmen die zum Schutz gegen Attacken, Verfaelschungen und Missbrauch sensitiver Daten eingesetzt werden, müssen diese auch allen rechtlichen Aspekten und Rahmenbedingungen von Telekommunikationssystemen entsprechen. In diesem Sinne muss das Ziel von Forschungen im Bereich neuer kontext-sensitiver Systeme und Anwendungen die mit Positionsdaten operieren der Schutz der Privatheit jedes einzelnen Nutzers sein. Diese Dissertation beginnt mit einer Diskussion über verschiedene Aspekte von Location-Based Systemen. Es werden weiters unterschiedliche Anforderungen aufgezeigt deren Erfüllung notwendig sind, um flexible Systeme anbieten zu können und die zudem den Schutz der Privatheit der Nutzer garantieren können. Der wohl wichtigste Beitrag dazu ist ein Mechanismus der auf dem Begriff des Pseudonyms basiert.Dieses Verfahren garantiert maximale Sicherheit und Schutz der Privatheit der Benutzer während der Nutzung von Diensten. Der zweite Beitrag der Dissertation ist eine Telekom Service Architektur die den erwähnten Pseudonym-basierten Mechanismus integriert. Durch Einbeziehen dedizierter Dienste von Telekommunikationsanbietern bildet diese Architektur die Basis für die Realisierung neuer Geschäftsmodelle und ermöglicht die Implementierung des pay-as-you-go Konzeptes. Dieses ermöglicht Kunden anonym mobile Dienste von Drittanbietern zu konsumieren, ähnlich dem anonymen Kauf von Gütern mit realem Geld. Schliesslich wird mit der Implementierung einer Service Platform sowohl die Funktionsweise des Pseudonym Mechanismus sowie die Interaktionen der in der System Architektur vorgesehenen Dienste und Komponenten die zur Realisierung von Location-Based Anwendungen benötigt werden demonstriert.During the last years the development of mobile devices has gained significant progress with respect to memory capabilities, advanced processing power and higher transfer rates to name only a few performance parameters. At the same time eclectic positioning and localization technologies are meanwhile mature enough to be integrated into mobile devices. Not until positioning, localization and telecommunication technologies can be combined, seamlessly the basis for the proliferation of a new generation of context-aware applications and business models can be build. In this respect, location and position information foster novel future context-awareapplications. But, if this information is in the wrong hands such applications may by the same token pose severe threat. Therefore, apart from technical means against attacks, forgery and misuse of sensitive user information the interaction of all these systems must comply with legal requirements that precisely prescribe all aspects of telecommunication systems. In this spirit, the main research ob jective addressed for the design of new context- aware and location-based systems must be the protection of the user’s privacy. This dissertation discusses first various aspects of location-based systems and out of it the various needs that have to be addressed to be able to provide flexible location-based services to mobile users by preserving privacy. The main contribution of this work is a mechanism that is based on the notion of pseudonyms. The use of this kind of pseudonyms provides maximum security and privacy for users during communication. The second contribution is a telecommunication service architecture that is tightly coupled with the pseudonym mechanism. It allows new business models to be applied by leveraging the use of some services of the telcos’ infrastructure. This service application further allows the implementation of the so called pay-as-you-go concept. This allows customers to anonymously consume mobile services that are offered by third party application providers similarly to buying physical goods with cash. Finally, we demonstrate the implementation of a service platform that allows us to illustrate the operation of the pseudonym mechanism and the interworking of the system architecture’s components that are tailored for the realization of location-based applications

Advances in Information Security and Privacy

With the recent pandemic emergency, many people are spending their days in smart working and have increased their use of digital resources for both work and entertainment. The result is that the amount of digital information handled online is dramatically increased, and we can observe a significant increase in the number of attacks, breaches, and hacks. This Special Issue aims to establish the state of the art in protecting information by mitigating information risks. This objective is reached by presenting both surveys on specific topics and original approaches and solutions to specific problems. In total, 16 papers have been published in this Special Issue

A multifaceted formal analysis of end-to-end encrypted email protocols and cryptographic authentication enhancements

Largely owing to cryptography, modern messaging tools (e.g., Signal) have reached a considerable degree of sophistication, balancing advanced security features with high usability. This has not been the case for email, which however, remains the most pervasive and interoperable form of digital communication. As sensitive information (e.g., identification documents, bank statements, or the message in the email itself) is frequently exchanged by this means, protecting the privacy of email communications is a justified concern which has been emphasized in the last years. A great deal of effort has gone into the development of tools and techniques for providing email communications with privacy and security, requirements that were not originally considered. Yet, drawbacks across several dimensions hinder the development of a global solution that would strengthen security while maintaining the standard features that we expect from email clients. In this thesis, we present improvements to security in email communications. Relying on formal methods and cryptography, we design and assess security protocols and analysis techniques, and propose enhancements to implemented approaches for end-to-end secure email communication. In the first part, we propose a methodical process relying on code reverse engineering, which we use to abstract the specifications of two end-to-end security protocols from a secure email solution (called pEp); then, we apply symbolic verification techniques to analyze such protocols with respect to privacy and authentication properties. We also introduce a novel formal framework that enables a system's security analysis aimed at detecting flaws caused by possible discrepancies between the user's and the system's assessment of security. Security protocols, along with user perceptions and interaction traces, are modeled as transition systems; socio-technical security properties are defined as formulas in computation tree logic (CTL), which can then be verified by model checking. Finally, we propose a protocol that aims at securing a password-based authentication system designed to detect the leakage of a password database, from a code-corruption attack. In the second part, the insights gained by the analysis in Part I allow us to propose both, theoretical and practical solutions for improving security and usability aspects, primarily of email communication, but from which secure messaging solutions can benefit too. The first enhancement concerns the use of password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE) protocols for entity authentication in peer-to-peer decentralized settings, as a replacement for out-of-band channels; this brings provable security to the so far empirical process, and enables the implementation of further security and usability properties (e.g., forward secrecy, secure secret retrieval). A second idea refers to the protection of weak passwords at rest and in transit, for which we propose a scheme based on the use of a one-time-password; furthermore, we consider potential approaches for improving this scheme. The hereby presented research was conducted as part of an industrial partnership between SnT/University of Luxembourg and pEp Security S.A

Risk Management for the Future

A large part of academic literature, business literature as well as practices in real life are resting on the assumption that uncertainty and risk does not exist. We all know that this is not true, yet, a whole variety of methods, tools and practices are not attuned to the fact that the future is uncertain and that risks are all around us. However, despite risk management entering the agenda some decades ago, it has introduced risks on its own as illustrated by the financial crisis. Here is a book that goes beyond risk management as it is today and tries to discuss what needs to be improved further. The book also offers some cases