199 research outputs found
SECURITY AND PRIVACY ISSUES IN MOBILE NETWORKS, DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS
Mobile communication is playing a vital role in the daily life for the last two decades; in turn its fields gained the research attention, which led to the introduction of new technologies, services and applications. These new added facilities aimed to ease the connectivity and reachability; on the other hand, many security and privacy concerns were not taken into consideration. This opened the door for the malicious activities to threaten the deployed systems and caused vulnerabilities for users, translated in the loss of valuable data and major privacy invasions. Recently, many attempts have been carried out to handle these concerns, such as improving systemsâ security and implementing different privacy enhancing mechanisms. This research addresses these problems and provides a mean to preserve privacy in particular. In this research, a detailed description and analysis of the current security and privacy situation in the deployed systems is given. As a result, the existing shortages within these systems are pointed out, to be mitigated in development. Finally a privacy preserving prototype model is proposed. This research has been conducted as an extensive literature review about the most relevant references and researches in the field, using the descriptive and evaluative research methodologies. The main security models, parameters, modules and protocols are presented, also a detailed description of privacy and its related arguments, dimensions and factors is given. The findings include that mobile networksâ security along with users are vulnerable due to the weaknesses of the key exchange procedures, the difficulties that face possession, repudiation, standardization, compatibility drawbacks and lack of configurability. It also includes the need to implement new mechanisms to protect security and preserve privacy, which include public key cryptography, HIP servers, IPSec, TLS, NAT and DTLS-SRTP. Last but not least, it shows that privacy is not absolute and it has many conflicts, also privacy requires sophisticated systems, which increase the load and cost of the system.fi=OpinnĂ€ytetyö kokotekstinĂ€ PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=LĂ€rdomsprov tillgĂ€ngligt som fulltext i PDF-format
Secure and Privacy-Preserving Authentication Protocols for Wireless Mesh Networks
Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged as a promising concept to meet the
challenges in next-generation wireless networks such as providing flexible,
adaptive, and reconfigurable architecture while offering cost-effective
solutions to service providers. As WMNs become an increasingly popular
replacement technology for last-mile connectivity to the home networking,
community and neighborhood networking, it is imperative to design efficient and
secure communication protocols for these networks. However, several
vulnerabilities exist in currently existing protocols for WMNs. These security
loopholes can be exploited by potential attackers to launch attack on WMNs. The
absence of a central point of administration makes securing WMNs even more
challenging. The broadcast nature of transmission and the dependency on the
intermediate nodes for multi-hop communications lead to several security
vulnerabilities in WMNs. The attacks can be external as well as internal in
nature. External attacks are launched by intruders who are not authorized users
of the network. For example, an intruding node may eavesdrop on the packets and
replay those packets at a later point of time to gain access to the network
resources. On the other hand, the internal attacks are launched by the nodes
that are part of the WMN. On example of such attack is an intermediate node
dropping packets which it was supposed to forward. This chapter presents a
comprehensive discussion on the current authentication and privacy protection
schemes for WMN. In addition, it proposes a novel security protocol for node
authentication and message confidentiality and an anonymization scheme for
privacy protection of users in WMNs.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures. The work is an extended version of the author's
previous works submitted in CoRR: arXiv:1107.5538v1 and arXiv:1102.1226v
Securing IP Mobility Management for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks
The proliferation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) applications, such as
Internet access and Infotainment, highlights the requirements for improving the underlying
mobility management protocols for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). Mobility
management protocols in VANETs are envisioned to support mobile nodes (MNs), i.e.,
vehicles, with seamless communications, in which service continuity is guaranteed while
vehicles are roaming through different RoadSide Units (RSUs) with heterogeneous wireless
technologies.
Due to its standardization and widely deployment, IP mobility (also called Mobile IP
(MIP)) is the most popular mobility management protocol used for mobile networks including
VANETs. In addition, because of the diversity of possible applications, the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) issues many MIP's standardizations, such as MIPv6 and
NEMO for global mobility, and Proxy MIP (PMIPv6) for localized mobility. However,
many challenges have been posed for integrating IP mobility with VANETs, including the
vehicle's high speeds, multi-hop communications, scalability, and ef ficiency. From a security
perspective, we observe three main challenges: 1) each vehicle's anonymity and location
privacy, 2) authenticating vehicles in multi-hop communications, and 3) physical-layer
location privacy.
In transmitting mobile IPv6 binding update signaling messages, the mobile node's Home
Address (HoA) and Care-of Address (CoA) are transmitted as plain-text, hence they can
be revealed by other network entities and attackers. The mobile node's HoA and CoA
represent its identity and its current location, respectively, therefore revealing an MN's HoA
means breaking its anonymity while revealing an MN's CoA means breaking its location
privacy. On one hand, some existing anonymity and location privacy schemes require
intensive computations, which means they cannot be used in such time-restricted seamless
communications. On the other hand, some schemes only achieve seamless communication
through low anonymity and location privacy levels. Therefore, the trade-off between the
network performance, on one side, and the MN's anonymity and location privacy, on the
other side, makes preservation of privacy a challenging issue. In addition, for PMIPv6
to provide IP mobility in an infrastructure-connected multi-hop VANET, an MN uses a
relay node (RN) for communicating with its Mobile Access Gateway (MAG). Therefore,
a mutual authentication between the MN and RN is required to thwart authentication
attacks early in such scenarios. Furthermore, for a NEMO-based VANET infrastructure,
which is used in public hotspots installed inside moving vehicles, protecting physical-layer
location privacy is a prerequisite for achieving privacy in upper-layers such as the IP-layer. Due to the open nature of the wireless environment, a physical-layer attacker can easily
localize users by employing signals transmitted from these users.
In this dissertation, we address those security challenges by proposing three security
schemes to be employed for different mobility management scenarios in VANETs, namely,
the MIPv6, PMIPv6, and Network Mobility (NEMO) protocols.
First, for MIPv6 protocol and based on the onion routing and anonymizer, we propose
an anonymous and location privacy-preserving scheme (ALPP) that involves two complementary
sub-schemes: anonymous home binding update (AHBU) and anonymous return
routability (ARR). In addition, anonymous mutual authentication and key establishment
schemes have been proposed, to authenticate a mobile node to its foreign gateway and
create a shared key between them. Unlike existing schemes, ALPP alleviates the tradeoff
between the networking performance and the achieved privacy level. Combining onion
routing and the anonymizer in the ALPP scheme increases the achieved location privacy
level, in which no entity in the network except the mobile node itself can identify this
node's location. Using the entropy model, we show that ALPP achieves a higher degree of
anonymity than that achieved by the mix-based scheme. Compared to existing schemes,
the AHBU and ARR sub-schemes achieve smaller computation overheads and thwart both
internal and external adversaries. Simulation results demonstrate that our sub-schemes
have low control-packets routing delays, and are suitable for seamless communications.
Second, for the multi-hop authentication problem in PMIPv6-based VANET, we propose
EM3A, a novel mutual authentication scheme that guarantees the authenticity of both
MN and RN. EM3A thwarts authentication attacks, including Denial of service (DoS), collusion,
impersonation, replay, and man-in-the-middle attacks. EM3A works in conjunction
with a proposed scheme for key establishment based on symmetric polynomials, to generate
a shared secret key between an MN and an RN. This scheme achieves lower revocation
overhead than that achieved by existing symmetric polynomial-based schemes. For a PMIP
domain with n points of attachment and a symmetric polynomial of degree t, our scheme
achieves t x 2^n-secrecy, whereas the existing symmetric polynomial-based authentication
schemes achieve only t-secrecy. Computation and communication overhead analysis as well
as simulation results show that EM3A achieves low authentication delay and is suitable
for seamless multi-hop IP communications. Furthermore, we present a case study of a
multi-hop authentication PMIP (MA-PMIP) implemented in vehicular networks. EM3A
represents the multi-hop authentication in MA-PMIP to mutually authenticate the roaming
vehicle and its relay vehicle. Compared to other authentication schemes, we show that our
MA-PMIP protocol with EM3A achieves 99.6% and 96.8% reductions in authentication
delay and communication overhead, respectively.
Finally, we consider the physical-layer location privacy attacks in the NEMO-based
VANETs scenario, such as would be presented by a public hotspot installed inside a moving
vehicle. We modify the obfuscation, i.e., concealment, and power variability ideas and
propose a new physical-layer location privacy scheme, the fake point-cluster based scheme,
to prevent attackers from localizing users inside NEMO-based VANET hotspots. Involving
the fake point and cluster based sub-schemes, the proposed scheme can: 1) confuse
the attackers by increasing the estimation errors of their Received Signal Strength (RSSs)
measurements, and 2) prevent attackers' monitoring devices from detecting the user's transmitted
signals. We show that our scheme not only achieves higher location privacy, but
also increases the overall network performance. Employing correctness, accuracy, and certainty
as three different metrics, we analytically measure the location privacy achieved by
our proposed scheme. In addition, using extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the
fake point-cluster based scheme can be practically implemented in high-speed VANETs'
scenarios
A Taxonomy for and Analysis of Anonymous Communications Networks
Any entity operating in cyberspace is susceptible to debilitating attacks. With cyber attacks intended to gather intelligence and disrupt communications rapidly replacing the threat of conventional and nuclear attacks, a new age of warfare is at hand. In 2003, the United States acknowledged that the speed and anonymity of cyber attacks makes distinguishing among the actions of terrorists, criminals, and nation states difficult. Even President Obamaâs Cybersecurity Chief-elect recognizes the challenge of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Now through April 2009, the White House is reviewing federal cyber initiatives to protect US citizen privacy rights. Indeed, the rising quantity and ubiquity of new surveillance technologies in cyberspace enables instant, undetectable, and unsolicited information collection about entities. Hence, anonymity and privacy are becoming increasingly important issues. Anonymization enables entities to protect their data and systems from a diverse set of cyber attacks and preserves privacy. This research provides a systematic analysis of anonymity degradation, preservation and elimination in cyberspace to enhance the security of information assets. This includes discovery/obfuscation of identities and actions of/from potential adversaries. First, novel taxonomies are developed for classifying and comparing well-established anonymous networking protocols. These expand the classical definition of anonymity and capture the peer-to-peer and mobile ad hoc anonymous protocol family relationships. Second, a unique synthesis of state-of-the-art anonymity metrics is provided. This significantly aids an entityâs ability to reliably measure changing anonymity levels; thereby, increasing their ability to defend against cyber attacks. Finally, a novel epistemic-based mathematical model is created to characterize how an adversary reasons with knowledge to degrade anonymity. This offers multiple anonymity property representations and well-defined logical proofs to ensure the accuracy and correctness of current and future anonymous network protocol design
On privacy in mobile voice communication networks
The introduction of mobile communications has undoubtedly altered our physical and social world. Like the Internet, it has changed the way we interact with each other allowing for communication using a variety of communication mediums by means of a magnitude of interactive mobile devices. The context, content, persons communicating, situation and timing all have a varying degree of influence on the sensitivity of information being shared. The individual's awareness of exposure of their private information on the Internet has filtered through into the mobile communications space. It is commonly held in current mobile communication network literature that as privacy-sensitive information travels through a network, it may be exposed to privacy infringement at various stages along its journey. Much of the concern from the individual's perspective, though, stems from a fear of the unknown. In the presence of these threats and vulnerabilities it is justified to wonder whether current mobile communications networks (and indeed future networks) provides sufficient privacy for users with very valuable information to communicate. In this thesis, I develop a systematic approach to identifying areas of privacy concern in a current mobile communication networks in an effort to outline mobile communication privacy principles and how applicable they are in Next Generation Networks. With a privacy stance, the objective of my work is through technical examination and sometimes theoretical undertaking to identify acceptable solutions which restrict the flow of private information and ultimately confirm, through privacy analyses, the benefits gained in doing so. The results show that, given the current situation and technological configuration, there are commonalities which extend beyond a mere concern within a mobile communications network's requirement for privacy enhancement. In a perfect world, the idea is to articulate towards a system of privacy by design rather than as an uttered afterthought. It is no longer inconceivable to think there is an opportunity to deliver a privacy-conscious network, if careful consideration is given to all parties and aspects that govern a mobile communications network and the correct privacy-enhancing technologies are administered correctly. Throughout my thesis, although each privacy solution is segmented and may have a specific privacy application, the results attested contribute largely to a converged prospectus for privacy-aware future generation communication networks. The significance of this lies in the study of past privacy pitfalls in order to better manage the potential for future privacy problems. The rationalisation is if privacy principles are identified (in existing networks) and adhered and applied to (in next generation networks), then we converge towards a network infrastructure that possesses a desirable level of privacy protection.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011.Computer Scienceunrestricte
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A Comprehensive Survey of Voice over IP Security Research
We present a comprehensive survey of Voice over IP security academic research, using a set of 245 publications forming a closed cross-citation set. We classify these papers according to an extended version of the VoIP Security Alliance (VoIPSA) Threat Taxonomy. Our goal is to provide a roadmap for researchers seeking to understand existing capabilities and to identify gaps in addressing the numerous threats and vulnerabilities present in VoIP systems. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to vulnerabilities reported in a variety of VoIP products. We identify two specific problem areas (denial of service, and service abuse) as requiring significant more attention from the research community. We also find that the overwhelming majority of the surveyed work takes a black box view of VoIP systems that avoids examining their internal structure and implementation. Such an approach may miss the mark in terms of addressing the main sources of vulnerabilities, i.e., implementation bugs and misconfigurations. Finally, we argue for further work on understanding cross-protocol and cross-mechanism vulnerabilities (emergent properties), which are the byproduct of a highly complex system-of-systems and an indication of the issues in future large-scale systems
Secure covert communications over streaming media using dynamic steganography
Streaming technologies such as VoIP are widely embedded into commercial and industrial applications, so it is imperative to address data security issues before the problems get really serious. This thesis describes a theoretical and experimental investigation of secure covert communications over streaming media using dynamic steganography. A covert VoIP communications system was developed in C++ to enable the implementation of the work being carried out.
A new information theoretical model of secure covert communications over streaming media was constructed to depict the security scenarios in streaming media-based steganographic systems with passive attacks. The model involves a stochastic process that models an information source for covert VoIP communications and the theory of hypothesis testing that analyses the adversaryâs detection performance.
The potential of hardware-based true random key generation and chaotic interval selection for innovative applications in covert VoIP communications was explored. Using the read time stamp counter of CPU as an entropy source was designed to generate true random numbers as secret keys for streaming media steganography. A novel interval selection algorithm was devised to choose randomly data embedding locations in VoIP streams using random sequences generated from achaotic process.
A dynamic key updating and transmission based steganographic algorithm that includes a one-way cryptographical accumulator integrated into dynamic key exchange for covert VoIP communications, was devised to provide secure key exchange for covert communications over streaming media. The discrete logarithm problem in mathematics and steganalysis using t-test revealed the algorithm has the advantage of being the most solid method of key distribution over a public channel.
The effectiveness of the new steganographic algorithm for covert communications over streaming media was examined by means of security analysis, steganalysis using non parameter Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon statistical testing, and performance and robustness measurements. The algorithm achieved the average data embedding rate of 800 bps, comparable to other related algorithms. The results indicated that the algorithm has no or little impact on real-time VoIP communications in terms of speech quality (< 5% change in PESQ with hidden data), signal distortion (6% change in SNR after steganography) and imperceptibility, and it is more secure and effective in addressing the security problems than other related algorithms
Business scenarios, technical challenges and system requirements - D2.1
Deliverable D2.1 del projecte Europeu OneFIT (ICT-2009-257385)Preprin
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