Securing combined Fog-to-Cloud systems: challenges and directions

Nowadays, fog computing is emerged for providing computational power closer to the users. Fog computing brings real-time processing, lowlatency, geo-distributed and etc. Although, fog computing do not come to compete cloud computing, it comes to collaborate. Recently, Fog-To-Cloud (F2C) continuum system is introduced to provide hierarchical computing system and facilitates fog-cloud collaboration. This F2C continuum system might encounter security issues and challenges due to their hierarchical and distributed nature. In this paper, we analyze attacks in different layer of F2C system and identify most potential security requirements and challenges for the F2C continuum system. Finally, we introduce the most remarkable efforts and trends for bringing secure F2C system.This work is supported by the H2020 projects mF2C (730929). It is also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund both under contract RTI2018-094532-B-100.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

End-to-end security scheme for mobility enabled healthcare Internet of Things

We propose an end-to-end security scheme for mobility enabled healthcare Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed scheme consists of (i) a secure and efficient end-user authentication and authorization architecture based on the certificate based DTLS handshake, (ii) secure end-to-end communication based on session resumption, and (iii) robust mobility based on interconnected smart gateways. The smart gateways act as an intermediate processing layer (called fog layer) between IoT devices and sensors (device layer) and cloud services (cloud layer). In our scheme, the fog layer facilitates ubiquitous mobility without requiring any reconfiguration at the device layer. The scheme is demonstrated by simulation and a full hardware software prototype. Based on our analysis, our scheme has the most extensive set of security features in comparison to related approaches found in literature. Energy-performance evaluation results show that compared to existing approaches, our scheme reduces the communication overhead by 26% and the communication latency between smart gateways and end users by 16%. In addition, our scheme is approximately 97% faster than certificate based and 10% faster than symmetric key based DTLS. Compared to our scheme, certificate based DTLS consumes about 2.2 times more RAM and 2.9 times more ROM resources. On the other hand, the RAM and ROM requirements of our scheme are almost as low as in symmetric key-based DTLS. Analysis of our implementation revealed that the handover latency caused by mobility is low and the handover process does not incur any processing or communication overhead on the sensors. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field