Improvements on the enforcement process based on intelligent transportation techniques: model and mechanisms for electronic reporting, offence notification and evidence generation

Enforcement activities in the road traffi c context have shown to be one of the key factors for reducing fatalities. However, despite their evolution (both in their underlying legislation and their technical means), there are several aspects that may be subject to improvement. Three of them are on the focus of this thesis. First, victims of offenders are usually not able to report them, as there are not enough data to support their claims. Second, there is a significant delay between the offence and its notification, which negatively affects to its educational purpose. Third, the offender does not have the practical chance to defend herself (i.e. claim her innocence or, at least, that it was a less serious offence) as there are no suitable attesting elements. In order to contribute on these issues, recent advances on data processing, communication and sensing capabilities of vehicles conform an interesting technological context. These new capabilities are the basis over which a new family of services, called Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are being developed. Despite the new opportunities provided by ITSs, it does not exist an adequate framework to guide the introduction of these new techniques in the surveillance of the adherence to the road traffi c rules. Thus, there is a lack of a clear view on how these techniques may help on the aforementioned problems. The general goal of this thesis is to provide the technical basis for the realization of an ITS-enhanced electronic road traffi c administrative enforcement process. Particularly, four contributions are developed in this thesis. First, an enforcement process model is proposed, based on the results of the European VERA2 project. The model describes the entities, the stakeholders, the data at stake and the underlying security considerations. It conforms the aforementioned framework that enables identifying where to introduce the required ITS enhancements. Based on the previous model, the remaining contributions focus on the development of specific mechanisms where the enforcement actors (the offender, the offence witnesses, the victims and the Authority) participate actively through ITS-related technologies. Thus, the second contribution is a mechanism that enables victims to report their offenders. In order to prevent this action to be noticeable by the reported driver, the report information is embedded into innocuous-looking messages by means of steganography. As the educational purpose of the punishment grows with its immediacy, the third contribution is a protocol to send an offence notification to the offending vehicle. Thanks to the human-machine interface of the vehicle, the offender is able to realize about the fine even during the same trip in which the offence was committed. Finally, in order to ensure that the driver has adequate means to defend herself against unfair punishments, a protocol to create evidences on its recent driving behavior has been proposed. Such evidences are based on the sensorial perceptions by surrounding vehicles, which are contacted using ITS communication technologies. At the light of these contributions, this thesis opens the door to upcoming developments that may end into a fully automated enforcement process. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Uno de los factores m as críticos para la reducción de la siniestralidad en las carreteras es la vigilancia del cumplimiento de las normas de circulación. A pesar de la evolución de los procedimientos y técnicas para efectuar dicha vigilancia (tanto en el ámbito normativo como en el técnico), existen algunos factores que son susceptibles de mejora. Tres de ellos constituyen el foco principal de esta tesis. En primer lugar, las víctimas de los infractores no disponen de medios prácticos para denunciarles, pues habitualmente no existen datos que permitan acreditar la descripción de los hechos manifestada. En segundo lugar, existe un intervalo significativo de tiempo entre la comisión de la infracción y la recepción de la notificación de la correspondiente denuncia, lo que afecta negativamente a la capacidad educativa de las sanciones. En tercer lugar, el supuesto infractor no dispone de medios prácticos para defenderse, pues habitualmente no se cuenta con elementos que soporten su argumento. Con el fin de contribuir a estas cuestiones, los avances recientes en materia de procesamiento de información, transmisión de información y percepción sensorial en los vehículos constituyen un contexto tecnológico interesante. Estas nuevas capacidades son la base sobre la que se construyen los Sistemas Inteligentes de Transporte (habitualmente referidos mediante sus siglas en ingl es, ITS). A pesar del desarrollo constante de dichos sistemas, no existe un marco adecuado para la utilización de dichas capacidades en el ámbito de la vigilancia del cumplimiento de las normas de circulación. Así, se detecta una carencia de una visión clara de cómo estas nuevas técnicas pueden contribuir a resolver los aspectos problemáticos identificados anteriormente. El objetivo general de esta tesis es proporcionar la base técnica para el desarrollo de un procedimiento administrativo sancionador en el ámbito del tr áfico que aproveche las oportunidades que plantean los ITS. En particular, en esta tesis se desarrollan cuatro contribuciones. En primer lugar, se propone un modelo de procedimiento administrativo sancionador, extendiendo los resultados del proyecto de investigación europeo VERA2. Este modelo describe las entidades participantes, los interesados, la información en juego y las consideraciones de seguridad subyacentes. Este modelo constituye el antedicho marco y permite identificar la forma de introducir las tecnologías ITS en dicho proceso. Basándose en este modelo, las contribuciones restantes se centran en el desarrollo de mecanismos espec íficos en los que los actores del proceso (el infractor, los testigos, las víctimas y la Autoridad) participan activamente empleando tecnologías relacionadas con los ITS. Así, la segunda contribuci ó es un mecanismo que permite a las víctimas denunciar a los infractores. Con el objetivo de impedir que dicha denuncia sea conocida por el infractor, el mensaje es introducido mediante técnicas esteganográficas en otro mensaje aparentemente inofensivo. La tercera contribución es el envío de la notificaci on de forma directa al vehí culo infractor, lo cual pretende incrementar la inmediatez del proceso (ya que se le puede presentar al infractor durante la conducción) y, con ello, su eficacia educativa. Finalmente, para promover que el conductor disponga de los medios adecuados para defenderse de sanciones supuestamente injustas, se propone un protocolo para la creaci on de evidencias que describan su comportamiento reciente en lo que respecta a la conducción. Dichas evidencias se basan en las percepciones sensoriales de los vehículos cercanos, los cuales son contactados empleando tecnologías de comunicaci on relacionadas con los ITS. A la vista de estas contribuciones, esta tesis abre la puerta al futuro desarrollo de un proceso sancionador completamente automatizado

SmartLED: Smartphone-based covert channels leveraging the notification LED

The widespread adoption of smartphones make them essential in daily routines. Thus, they can be used to create a covert channel without raising suspicions. To avoid detection, networkless communications are preferred. In this paper, we propose SmartLED, a mechanism to build covert channels leveraging a widely available smartphone feature - its notification LED. The secret is encoded through LED blinks using Manhattan encoding. SmartLED is assessed in real-world indoor and outdoor scenarios, considering different distances up to 5 meters. Our results show that the best performance is achieved in dark settings - 34.8 s. are needed to exfiltrate a 7-byte password to a distance of 1 m. Remarkably, distance does not cause a great impact on effective transmission time and shorter blinks do not lead to substantially greater transmission errorsThis work was supported by MINECO grant TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV), PID2019-111429RB-C21 (ODIO), P2018/TCS4566 (CYNAMON-CM) funded with European FEDER funds and CAVTIONS-CM-UC3M funded by UC3M and the Government of Madrid (CAM)

Privacy models in wireless sensor networks: a survey

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are attracting attention from the research community. One of the key issues is to provide them with privacy protection. In recent years, a huge amount of contributions has been focused on this area. Surveys and literature reviews have also been produced to give a systematic view of the different approaches taken. However, no previous work has focused on privacy models, that is, the set of assumptions made to build the approach. In particular, this paper focuses on this matter by studying 41 papers of the last 5 years. We highlight the great differences appearing among related papers that could make them incompatible to be applied simultaneously. We propose a set of guidelines to build comprehensive privacy models so as to foster their comparability and suitability analysis for different scenarios.This work was supported by the MINECO Grant TIN2013-46469-R (Security and Privacy in the Internet of You (SPINY)) and the CAM Grant S2013/ICE-3095 (Cybersecurity,Data, and Risks (CIBERDINE)), which is cofunded by EuropeanFunds (FEDER). Furthermore, J.M. de Fuentes and L. González-Manzano were also partially supported by the Programa de Ayudas a la Movilidad of Carlos III University of Madrid

Dynamic risk assessment in IT environments: a decision guide

Security and reliability of information technologies have emerged as major concerns nowadays. Risk assessment, an estimation of negative impacts that might be imposed to a network by a series of potential sources, is one of the main tasks to ensure the security and is performed either statically or dynamically. Static risk assessment cannot satisfy the requirements of real-time and ubiquitous computing networks as it is pre-planned and does not consider upcoming changes such as the creation of new attack strategies. However, dynamic risk assessment (DRA) considers real-time evidences, being capable of diagnosing abnormal events in changing environments. Several DRA approaches have been proposed recently, but it is unclear which technique fits best into IT scenarios with different requirements. Thus, this chapter introduces recent trends in DRA, by analyzing 27 works and proposes a decision guide to help IT managers in choosing the most suitable DRA technique considering three illustrative scenarios – regular computer networks, internet of things, and industrial control systems

Leveraging user-related internet of things for continuous authentication: a survey

Among all Internet of Things (IoT) devices, a subset of them are related to users. Leveraging these user-related IoT elements, itis possible to ensure the identity of the user for a period of time, thus avoiding impersonation. This need is known as ContinuousAuthentication (CA). Since 2009, a plethora of IoT-based CA academic research and industrial contributions have been proposed. Weoffer a comprehensive overview of 58 research papers regarding the main components of such a CA system. The status of the industryis studied as well, covering 32 market contributions, research projects and related standards. Lessons learned, challenges and openissues to foster further research in this area are finally presented.This work was supported by the MINECO grant TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV) and by the CAM grants S2013/ICE-3095 (CIBERDINE) and P2018/TCS4566 (CYNAMON-CM) both co-funded with European FEDER funds

Secure and Usable User-in-a-Context Continuous Authentication in Smartphones Leveraging Non-Assisted Sensors

Smartphones are equipped with a set of sensors that describe the environment (e.g., GPS, noise, etc.) and their current status and usage (e.g., battery consumption, accelerometer readings, etc.). Several works have already addressed how to leverage such data for user-in-a-context continuous authentication, i.e., determining if the porting user is the authorized one and resides in his regular physical environment. This can be useful for an early reaction against robbery or impersonation. However, most previous works depend on assisted sensors, i.e., they rely upon immutable elements (e.g., cell towers, satellites, magnetism), thus being ineffective in their absence. Moreover, they focus on accuracy aspects, neglecting usability ones. For this purpose, in this paper, we explore the use of four non-assisted sensors, namely battery, transmitted data, ambient light and noise. Our approach leverages data stream mining techniques and offers a tunable security-usability trade-off. We assess the accuracy, immediacy, usability and readiness of the proposal. Results on 50 users over 24 months show that battery readings alone achieve 97.05% of accuracy and 81.35% for audio, light and battery all together. Moreover, when usability is at stake, robbery is detected in 100 s for the case of battery and in 250 s when audio, light and battery are applied. Remarkably, these figures are obtained with moderate training and storage needs, thus making the approach suitable for current devices.This work has been partially supported by MINECO grants TIN2013-46469-R (SPINY), TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV); CAM grant S2013/ICE-3095 (CIBERDINE), co-funded with European FEDER funds

Security protocols for networks and Internet: a global vision

This work was supported by the MINECO grant TIN2013-46469-R (SPINY: Security and Privacy in the Internet of You), by the CAM grant S2013/ICE-3095 (CIBERDINE: Cybersecurity, Data, and Risks), which is co-funded by European Funds (FEDER), and by the MINECO grant TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV—Security mechanisms for fog computing: advanced security for devices)

Revisión sistemática de la jurisprudencia española sobre ciberseguridad y privacidad (1995-2020)

With the explosion of information and communication technologies and the increase of connectivity, a plethora of offences have been identified such as grooming, personal data protection or impersonation, to name a few. Nevertheless, the relevance of this matter in Spanish courts has not been assessed. To overcome this limitation, in this paper we carry out a systematic analysis on 117 resolutions from 1995 to date. All of them belong to the Spanish Higher Courts, namely the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. This is particularly relevant as their resolutions can set a precedent that has to be observed by lower courts. Our analysis shows the legal issues that are more often at stake as well as the trends in terms of legal doctrines and punishments.Este trabajo se enmarca en el Proyecto de la Comunidad de Madrid (España) CYNAMON, subvención nº P2018/TCS-4566-CM, cofinanciado con FEDER, y también ha sido apoyado por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (España), Subvención CAVTIONS-CM-UC3M y por el proyecto “El futuro del trabajo: transformaciones y retos”, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (España), Ref.970922

Malicious uses of blockchains by malware: from the analysis to Smart-Zephyrus

Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This work was supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the multiannual agreement with UC3M (“fostering young doctor research”, DEPROFAKE-CM-UC3M) and in the context of the V PRICIT research and technological innovation regional program; by CAM by grant CYNAMON P2018/TCS-4566-CM, co-funded with ERDF; by 1208 Min. of Science and Innovation of Spain by grant ODIO PID2019-1209 111429RB-C21 (AEI/10.13039/50110 12100011033); and by Funding for APC: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Read & Publish Agreement CRUE-CSIC 2023)

Impact of injection attacks on sensor-based continuous authentication for smartphones

Given the relevance of smartphones for accessing personalized services in smart cities, Continuous Authentication (CA) mechanisms are attracting attention to avoid impersonation attacks. Some of them leverage Data Stream Mining (DSM) techniques applied over sensorial information. Injection attacks can undermine the effectiveness of DSM-based CA by fabricating artificial sensorial readings. The goal of this paper is to study the impact of injection attacks in terms of accuracy and immediacy to illustrate the time the adversary remains unnoticed. Two well-known DSM techniques (K-Nearest Neighbours and Hoeffding Adaptive Trees) and three data sources (location, gyroscope and accelerometer) are considered due to their widespread usage Results show that even if the attacker does not previously know anything about the victim, a significant attack surface arises - 1.35 min are needed, in the best case, to detect the attack on gyroscope and accelerometer and 7.27 min on location data. Moreover, we show that the type of sensor at stake and configuration settings may have a dramatic effect on countering this threat.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities grants TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV), PID2019-111429RBC21(ODIO); by Comunidad de Madrid (CAM) grant P2018/TCS4566 (CYNAMON-CM) funded with European FEDER funds; and CAVTIONS-CM-UC3M funded by UC3M and CAM