XACML for building access control policies in Internet of Things

Although the Internet of things (IoT) brought unlimited benefits, it also brought many security issues. The access control is one of the main elements to address these issues. It provides the access to system resources only to authorized users and ensures that they behave in an authorized manner during their access sessions. One of the significant components of any access control model is access policies. They are used to build the criteria to permit or deny any access request. Building an efficient access control model for the IoT require selecting an appropriate access policy language to implement access policies. Therefore, this paper presents an overview of most common access policy languages. It starts with discussing different access control models and features of the access policy. After reviewing different access policy languages, we proposed XACML as the most efficient and appropriate policy language for the IoT as it compatible with different platforms, provides a distributed and flexible approach to work with different access control scenarios of the IoT system. In addition, we proposed an XACML model for an Adaptive Risk-Based Access Control (AdRBAC) for the IoT and showed how the access decision will be made using XACML

Blockchain with Internet of Things: benefits, challenges, and future directions

The Internet of Things (IoT) has extended the internet connectivity to reach not just computers and humans, but most of our environment things. The IoT has the potential to connect billions of objects simultaneously which has the impact of improving information sharing needs that result in improving our life. Although the IoT benefits are unlimited, there are many challenges facing adopting the IoT in the real world due to its centralized server/client model. For instance, scalability and security issues that arise due to the excessive numbers of IoT objects in the network. The server/client model requires all devices to be connected and authenticated through the server, which creates a single point of failure. Therefore, moving the IoT system into the decentralized path may be the right decision. One of the popular decentralization systems is blockchain. The Blockchain is a powerful technology that decentralizes computation and management processes which can solve many of IoT issues, especially security. This paper provides an overview of the integration of the blockchain with the IoT with highlighting the integration benefits and challenges. The future research directions of blockchain with IoT are also discussed. We conclude that the combination of blockchain and IoT can provide a powerful approach which can significantly pave the way for new business models and distributed applications

Security, cybercrime and digital forensics for IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) connects almost all the environment objects whether physical or virtual over the Internet to produce new digitized services that improve people’s lifestyle. Currently, several IoT applications have a direct impact on our daily life activities including smart agriculture, wearables, connected healthcare, connected vehicles, and others. Despite the countless benefits provided by the IoT system, it introduces several security challenges. Resolving these challenges should be one of the highest priorities for IoT manufacturers to continue the successful deployment of IoT applications. The owners of IoT devices should guarantee that effective security measures are built in their devices. With the developments of the Internet, the number of security attacks and cybercrimes has increased significantly. In addition, with poor security measures implemented in IoT devices, the IoT system creates more opportunities for cybercrimes to attack various application and services of the IoT system resulting in a direct impact on users. One of the approaches that tackle the increasing number of cybercrimes is digital forensics. Cybercrimes with the power of the IoT technology can cross the virtual space to threaten human life, therefore, IoT forensics is required to investigate and mitigate against such attacks. This chapter presents a review of IoT security and forensics. It started with reviewing the IoT system by discussing building blocks of an IoT device, essential characteristic, communication technologies and challenges of the IoT. Then, IoT security by highlighting threats and solutions regarding IoT architecture layers are discussed. Digital forensics is also discussed by presenting the main steps of the investigation process. In the end, IoT forensics is discussed by reviewing related IoT forensics frameworks, discussing the need for adopting real-time approaches and showing various IoT forensics.N/

Decoupling hydrogen and oxygen evolution during electrolytic water splitting using an electron-coupled-proton buffer

Hydrogen is essential to several key industrial processes and could play a major role as an energy carrier in a future ‘hydrogen economy’. Although the majority of the world's hydrogen supply currently comes from the reformation of fossil fuels, its generation from water using renewables-generated power could provide a hydrogen source without increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Conventional water electrolysis produces H2 and O2 simultaneously, such that these gases must be generated in separate spaces to prevent their mixing. Herein, using the polyoxometalate H3PMo12O40, we introduce the concept of the electron-coupled-proton buffer (ECPB), whereby O2 and H2 can be produced at separate times during water electrolysis. This could have advantages in preventing gas mixing in the headspaces of high-pressure electrolysis cells, with implications for safety and electrolyser degradation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that temporally separated O2 and H2 production allows greater flexibility regarding the membranes and electrodes that can be used in water-splitting cells