Enabling technologies and cyber-physical systems for mission-critical scenarios

Programa Oficial de Doutoramento en Tecnoloxías da Información e Comunicacións en Redes Móbiles . 5029P01[Abstract] Reliable transport systems, defense, public safety and quality assurance in the Industry 4.0 are essential in a modern society. In a mission-critical scenario, a mission failure would jeopardize human lives and put at risk some other assets whose impairment or loss would significantly harm society or business results. Even small degradations of the communications supporting the mission could have large and possibly dire consequences. On the one hand, mission-critical organizations wish to utilize the most modern, disruptive and innovative communication systems and technologies, and yet, on the other hand, need to comply with strict requirements, which are very different to those of non critical scenarios. The aim of this thesis is to assess the feasibility of applying emerging technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and 4G broadband communications in mission-critical scenarios along three key critical infrastructure sectors: transportation, defense and public safety, and shipbuilding. Regarding the transport sector, this thesis provides an understanding of the progress of communications technologies used for railways since the implantation of Global System for Mobile communications-Railways (GSM-R). The aim of this work is to envision the potential contribution of Long Term Evolution (LTE) to provide additional features that GSM-R would never support. Furthermore, the ability of Industrial IoT for revolutionizing the railway industry and confront today's challenges is presented. Moreover, a detailed review of the most common flaws found in Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) based IoT systems is presented, including the latest attacks described in the literature. As a result, a novel methodology for auditing security and reverse engineering RFID communications in transport applications is introduced. The second sector selected is driven by new operational needs and the challenges that arise from modern military deployments. The strategic advantages of 4G broadband technologies massively deployed in civil scenarios are examined. Furthermore, this thesis analyzes the great potential for applying IoT technologies to revolutionize modern warfare and provide benefits similar to those in industry. It identifies scenarios where defense and public safety could leverage better commercial IoT capabilities to deliver greater survivability to the warfighter or first responders, while reducing costs and increasing operation efficiency and effectiveness. The last part is devoted to the shipbuilding industry. After defining the novel concept of Shipyard 4.0, how a shipyard pipe workshop works and what are the requirements for building a smart pipe system are described in detail. Furthermore, the foundations for enabling an affordable CPS for Shipyards 4.0 are presented. The CPS proposed consists of a network of beacons that continuously collect information about the location of the pipes. Its design allows shipyards to obtain more information on the pipes and to make better use of it. Moreover, it is indicated how to build a positioning system from scratch in an environment as harsh in terms of communications as a shipyard, showing an example of its architecture and implementation.[Resumen] En la sociedad moderna, los sistemas de transporte fiables, la defensa, la seguridad pública y el control de la calidad en la Industria 4.0 son esenciales. En un escenario de misión crítica, el fracaso de una misión pone en peligro vidas humanas y en riesgo otros activos cuyo deterioro o pérdida perjudicaría significativamente a la sociedad o a los resultados de una empresa. Incluso pequeñas degradaciones en las comunicaciones que apoyan la misión podrían tener importantes y posiblemente terribles consecuencias. Por un lado, las organizaciones de misión crítica desean utilizar los sistemas y tecnologías de comunicación más modernos, disruptivos e innovadores y, sin embargo, deben cumplir requisitos estrictos que son muy diferentes a los relativos a escenarios no críticos. El objetivo principal de esta tesis es evaluar la viabilidad de aplicar tecnologías emergentes como Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) y comunicaciones de banda ancha 4G en escenarios de misión crítica en tres sectores clave de infraestructura crítica: transporte, defensa y seguridad pública, y construcción naval. Respecto al sector del transporte, esta tesis permite comprender el progreso de las tecnologías de comunicación en el ámbito ferroviario desde la implantación de Global System for Mobile communications-Railway (GSM-R). El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la contribución potencial de Long Term Evolution (LTE) para proporcionar características adicionales que GSM-R nunca podría soportar. Además, se presenta la capacidad de la IoT industrial para revolucionar la industria ferroviaria y afrontar los retos actuales. Asimismo, se estudian con detalle las vulnerabilidades más comunes de los sistemas IoT basados en Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), incluyendo los últimos ataques descritos en la literatura. Como resultado, se presenta una metodología innovadora para realizar auditorías de seguridad e ingeniería inversa de las comunicaciones RFID en aplicaciones de transporte. El segundo sector elegido viene impulsado por las nuevas necesidades operacionales y los desafíos que surgen de los despliegues militares modernos. Para afrontarlos, se analizan las ventajas estratégicas de las tecnologías de banda ancha 4G masivamente desplegadas en escenarios civiles. Asimismo, esta tesis analiza el gran potencial de aplicación de las tecnologías IoT para revolucionar la guerra moderna y proporcionar beneficios similares a los alcanzados por la industria. Se identifican escenarios en los que la defensa y la seguridad pública podrían aprovechar mejor las capacidades comerciales de IoT para ofrecer una mayor capacidad de supervivencia al combatiente o a los servicios de emergencias, a la vez que reduce los costes y aumenta la eficiencia y efectividad de las operaciones. La última parte se dedica a la industria de construcción naval. Después de definir el novedoso concepto de Astillero 4.0, se describe en detalle cómo funciona el taller de tubería de astillero y cuáles son los requisitos para construir un sistema de tuberías inteligentes. Además, se presentan los fundamentos para posibilitar un CPS asequible para Astilleros 4.0. El CPS propuesto consiste en una red de balizas que continuamente recogen información sobre la ubicación de las tuberías. Su diseño permite a los astilleros obtener más información sobre las tuberías y hacer un mejor uso de las mismas. Asimismo, se indica cómo construir un sistema de posicionamiento desde cero en un entorno tan hostil en términos de comunicaciones, mostrando un ejemplo de su arquitectura e implementación

E-Voting System Using Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain and Smart Contracts †

Presented at the 4th XoveTIC Conference, A Coruña, Spain, 7–8 October 2021.[Abstract] The emergence of the current pandemic has led to a new reality in which bureaucratic formalities have been affected in terms of health security, procedures, resource management, among others. Specifically, in the electoral processes, where the difficulty of fulfilling the social distance and the mobility restrictions reopen the debate on the implementation of other more advanced and modern alternatives, such as electronic voting (e-voting). This article presents the design and implementation of a decentralized e-voting system that has the potential to provide a higher level of transparency, security, and cost-efficiency. Hyperledger Fabric blockchain and smart contracts are used to cast votes, which are then recorded in an immutable way, giving voters anonymity and trust in the fairness of the election process. In addition, promising results of the performance of the e-voting system in terms of latency and transaction load are presented

Towards Next Generation Teaching, Learning, and Context-Aware Applications for Higher Education: A Review on Blockchain, IoT, Fog and Edge Computing Enabled Smart Campuses and Universities

[Abstract] Smart campuses and smart universities make use of IT infrastructure that is similar to the one required by smart cities, which take advantage of Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing solutions to monitor and actuate on the multiple systems of a university. As a consequence, smart campuses and universities need to provide connectivity to IoT nodes and gateways, and deploy architectures that allow for offering not only a good communications range through the latest wireless and wired technologies, but also reduced energy consumption to maximize IoT node battery life. In addition, such architectures have to consider the use of technologies like blockchain, which are able to deliver accountability, transparency, cyber-security and redundancy to the processes and data managed by a university. This article reviews the state of the start on the application of the latest key technologies for the development of smart campuses and universities. After defining the essential characteristics of a smart campus/university, the latest communications architectures and technologies are detailed and the most relevant smart campus deployments are analyzed. Moreover, the use of blockchain in higher education applications is studied. Therefore, this article provides useful guidelines to the university planners, IoT vendors and developers that will be responsible for creating the next generation of smart campuses and universities.Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-045Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2016-75067-C4-1-

Design of a Fog Computing, Blockchain and IoT-Based Continuous Glucose Monitoring System for Crowdsourcing mHealth

[Abstract] Diabetes Mellitus, usually called only Diabetes, is a worldwide chronic metabolic disorder that is characterized by abnormal oscillations in blood sugar levels. Such levels should be monitored by diabetes patients, which traditionally have had to take blood samples by finger-pricking, at least between twice and four times a day. Finger-pricking has a number of drawbacks that can be tackled by Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs), which are able to determine blood sugar levels throughout the day and not only at specific time instants. In this paper, the design of an IoT CGM-based system is proposed, whose collected blood sugar sample values can be accessed remotely; thus being able to monitor patients, specifically dependent ones (e.g., children, elders, and pregnant women) and warn them in the case where a dangerous situation is detected. In order to create such a system, a fog computing system, based on distributed mobile smart phones, has been devised to collect data from the CGMs. Moreover, the use of a blockchain is proposed, to receive, validate, and store the collected data with the objective of avoiding untrusted sources and, thus, to provide a transparent and trustworthy data source of a population, which can vary in age, ethnicity, psychology, education, self-care, and/or geographic location, in a rapid, flexible, scalable, and low-cost way. These crowdsourced data can enable novel mHealth applications for diagnosis, patient monitoring, or even public health actions, which can help to advance in the control of the disease and raise global awareness on the increasing prevalence of diabetes.Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-045Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2016-75067-C4-1-

Towards the internet of smart clothing: a review on IoT wearables and garments for creating intelligent connected e-textiles

[Abstract] Technology has become ubiquitous, it is all around us and is becoming part of us. Togetherwith the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm and enabling technologies (e.g., Augmented Reality (AR), Cyber-Physical Systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain or edge computing), smart wearables and IoT-based garments can potentially have a lot of influence by harmonizing functionality and the delight created by fashion. Thus, smart clothes look for a balance among fashion, engineering, interaction, user experience, cybersecurity, design and science to reinvent technologies that can anticipate needs and desires. Nowadays, the rapid convergence of textile and electronics is enabling the seamless and massive integration of sensors into textiles and the development of conductive yarn. The potential of smart fabrics, which can communicate with smartphones to process biometric information such as heart rate, temperature, breathing, stress, movement, acceleration, or even hormone levels, promises a new era for retail. This article reviews the main requirements for developing smart IoT-enabled garments and shows smart clothing potential impact on business models in the medium-term. Specifically, a global IoT architecture is proposed, the main types and components of smart IoT wearables and garments are presented, their main requirements are analyzed and some of the most recent smart clothing applications are studied. In this way, this article reviews the past and present of smart garments in order to provide guidelines for the future developers of a network where garments will be connected like other IoT objects: the Internet of Smart Clothing.Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2016-045Xunta de Galicia; ED341D R2016/012Xunta de Galicia; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2013-47141-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2016-75067-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación de España; TEC2015-69648-RED

Leveraging Blockchain for Sustainability and Open Innovation: A Cyber-Resilient Approach toward EU Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) member states identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be fulfilled by 2030. SDGs are an urgent global call for action to provide a blueprint for shared prosperity in a sustainable world. At a European level, in December 2019, the European Green Deal was presented, a roadmap to implement the UN 2030 agenda with a commitment to a growth strategy that will turn environmental challenges into opportunities across all policy areas. To achieve these SDGs, blockchain is one of the key enabling technologies that can help to create sustainable and secure solutions, since it is able to deliver accountability, transparency, traceability, and cyber-resilience, as well as to provide a higher operational efficiency in global partnerships. This chapter overviews the potential of blockchain to face sustainability challenges by describing several relevant applications. Finally, different open challenges and recommendations are enumerated with the aim of guiding all the stakeholders committed to the development of cyber-resilient and high-impact sustainable solutions

Use Case Based Blended Teaching of IIoT Cybersecurity in the Industry 4.0 Era

[Abstract] Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are paradigms that are driving current industrial revolution by connecting to the Internet industrial machinery, management tools or products so as to control and gather data about them. The problem is that many IIoT/Industry 4.0 devices have been connected to the Internet without considering the implementation of proper security measures, thus existing many examples of misconfigured or weakly protected devices. Securing such systems requires very specific skills, which, unfortunately, are not taught extensively in engineering schools. This article details how Industry 4.0 and IIoT cybersecurity can be learned through practical use cases, making use of a methodology that allows for carrying out audits to students that have no previous experience in IIoT or industrial cybersecurity. The described teaching approach is blended and has been imparted at the University of A Coruña (Spain) during the last years, even during the first semester of 2020, when the university was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Such an approach is supported by online tools like Shodan, which ease the detection of vulnerable IIoT devices. The feedback results provided by the students show that they consider useful the proposed methodology, which allowed them to find that 13% of the IIoT/Industry 4.0 systems they analyzed could be accessed really easily. In addition, the obtained teaching results indicate that the established course learning outcomes are accomplished. Therefore, this article provides useful guidelines for teaching industrial cybersecurity and thus train the next generation of security researchers and developers.This work has been funded by the Xunta de Galicia (ED431G 2019/01), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of Spain (TEC2016-75067-C4-1-R, RED2018-102668-T, PID2019-104958RB-C42) and ERDF funds of the EU (AEI/FEDER, UE)Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/0

Towards Post-Quantum Blockchain: A Review on Blockchain Cryptography Resistant to Quantum Computing Attacks

[Abstract] Blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) have evolved significantly in the last years and their use has been suggested for numerous applications due to their ability to provide transparency, redundancy and accountability. In the case of blockchain, such characteristics are provided through public-key cryptography and hash functions. However, the fast progress of quantum computing has opened the possibility of performing attacks based on Grover's and Shor's algorithms in the near future. Such algorithms threaten both public-key cryptography and hash functions, forcing to redesign blockchains to make use of cryptosystems that withstand quantum attacks, thus creating which are known as post-quantum, quantum-proof, quantum-safe or quantum-resistant cryptosystems. For such a purpose, this article first studies current state of the art on post-quantum cryptosystems and how they can be applied to blockchains and DLTs. Moreover, the most relevant post-quantum blockchain systems are studied, as well as their main challenges. Furthermore, extensive comparisons are provided on the characteristics and performance of the most promising post-quantum public-key encryption and digital signature schemes for blockchains. Thus, this article seeks to provide a broad view and useful guidelines on post-quantum blockchain security to future blockchain researchers and developers.10.13039/501100010801-Xunta de Galicia (Grant Number: ED431G2019/01) 10.13039/501100011033-Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Grant Number: TEC2016-75067-C4-1-R and RED2018-102668-T) 10.13039/501100008530-European Regional Development FundXunta de Galicia; ED431G2019/0