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Securing the Industrial Internet of Things

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 29353

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Division of Network and Systems Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 114 28 Stockholm, Sweden
Interests: security of IoT; IIoT; cyber-physical systems and smart-grid, especially on LoRaWAN networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled rapid enhancements for the applications not only in home, business, and environment scenarios, but also in factory automation. Today, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers all the advantages of IoT to the industrial scenarios, for a wide range of applications from remote sensing/actuating to de-centralization/autonomy.

In this Special Issue, the editor aims at presenting the IIoT and its place during the industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), while our world is being transformed into a better, comfortable, safer, automated, and sustainable one. This Special Issue will cover the cross-relations and implications of IIoT with existing wired/wireless communication/networking and safety technologies of the Industrial Networks, especially from a cybersecurity point of view. The cybersecurity-related needs/requirements of IIoT users (including GDPR-related implications and concerns) and the services that might address these needs will be a topic of interest. User privacy, data ownership, and proprietary information handling related to IIoT networks will also be investigated. The well-famed trio of cybersecurity, intrusion-prevention, -detection, and -mitigation will also be considered for IIoT networks.

This Special Issue encourages authors from academia and industry to submit new research results related to cybersecurity of IIoT. The topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • Cyber security of
    • Cyberphysical systems (CPS)
    • Digital twin
    • Intelligent factory
    • Industrial automation
    • Internet-of-Things (IoT)
    • Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT)
    • Smart cities
    • Smart factory
    • Smart supply-chain management
  • Cross-relations and implications of IIoT with (from a cybersecurity point of view):
    • Process and building automation protocols for Industry 4.0: BACnet, CAN,DLSM/COSEM, DNP3, Fieldbus, HART, ISA 100.11a, IEC 62601,PROFIBUS, PROFINET, Modbus, Modbus+, M-Bus, SCADA,WirelessHART, X10
    • Wireless communications technologies for Industry 4.0: IEEE 802.15.4, LPWAN (LoRa, etc.), 6lowPAN, ZigBee, Z-Wave
  • IIoT environments and privacy issues (GDPR point of view, etc.)
  • Industrial applications using IIoT (from a cybersecurity point of view)
  • Principles and techniques for cybersecurity of IIoT networks
  • Data collection/preparation techniques for analysis regarding cyber security
  • Technologies to be used
    • Blockchain
    • Digital signatures
    • Homomorphic encryption
    • and many more.

Dr. Ismail Butun
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Building automation
  • CPS
  • Digital twin
  • IIoT
  • Industry 4.0
  • IoT
  • LoRa
  • LPWAN
  • SCADA
  • Process automation
  • WirelessHART

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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38 pages, 1789 KiB  
Article
Application Perspective on Cybersecurity Testbed for Industrial Control Systems
by Ondrej Pospisil, Petr Blazek, Karel Kuchar, Radek Fujdiak and Jiri Misurec
Sensors 2021, 21(23), 8119; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21238119 - 04 Dec 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3158
Abstract
In recent years, the Industry 4.0 paradigm has accelerated the digitalization process of the industry, and it slowly diminishes the line between information technologies (IT) and operational technologies (OT). Among the advantages, this brings up the convergence issue between IT and OT, especially [...] Read more.
In recent years, the Industry 4.0 paradigm has accelerated the digitalization process of the industry, and it slowly diminishes the line between information technologies (IT) and operational technologies (OT). Among the advantages, this brings up the convergence issue between IT and OT, especially in the cybersecurity-related topics, including new attack vectors, threats, security imperfections, and much more. This cause raised new topics for methods focused on protecting the industrial infrastructure, including monitoring and detection systems, which should help overcome these new challenges. However, those methods require high quality and a large number of datasets with different conditions to adapt to the specific systems effectively. Unfortunately, revealing field factory setups and infrastructure would be costly and challenging due to the privacy and sensitivity causes. From the lack of data emerges the new topic of industrial testbeds, including sub-real physical laboratory environments, virtual factories, honeynets, honeypots, and other areas, which helps to deliver sufficient datasets for mentioned research and development. This paper summarizes related works in the area of industrial testbeds. Moreover, it describes best practices and lessons learned for assembling physical, simulated, virtual, and hybrid testbeds. Additionally, a comparison of the essential parameters of those testbeds is presented. Finally, the findings and provided information reveal research and development challenges, which must be surpassed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Securing the Industrial Internet of Things)
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22 pages, 2497 KiB  
Article
TTAS: Trusted Token Authentication Service of Securing SCADA Network in Energy Management System for Industrial Internet of Things
by Yu-Sheng Yang, Shih-Hsiung Lee, Wei-Che Chen, Chu-Sing Yang, Yuen-Min Huang and Ting-Wei Hou
Sensors 2021, 21(8), 2685; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21082685 - 11 Apr 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3510
Abstract
The vigorous development of the Industrial Internet of Things brings the advanced connection function of the new generation of industrial automation and control systems. The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network is converted into an open and highly interconnected network, where the [...] Read more.
The vigorous development of the Industrial Internet of Things brings the advanced connection function of the new generation of industrial automation and control systems. The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network is converted into an open and highly interconnected network, where the equipment connections between industrial electronic devices are integrated with a SCADA system through a Modbus protocol. As SCADA and Modbus are easily used for control and monitoring, the interconnection and operational efficiency between systems are highly improved; however, such connectivity inevitably exposes the system to the open network environment. There are many network security threats and vulnerabilities in a SCADA network system. Especially in the era of the Industrial Internet of Things, any security vulnerability of an industrial system may cause serious property losses. Therefore, this paper proposes an encryption and verification mechanism based on the trusted token authentication service and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to prevent attackers from physical attacks. Experimentally, this paper deployed and verified the system in an actual field of energy management system. According to the experimental results, the security defense architecture proposed in this paper can effectively improve security and is compatible with the actual field system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Securing the Industrial Internet of Things)
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32 pages, 2576 KiB  
Article
SELAMAT: A New Secure and Lightweight Multi-Factor Authentication Scheme for Cross-Platform Industrial IoT Systems
by Haqi Khalid, Shaiful Jahari Hashim, Sharifah Mumtazah Syed Ahmad, Fazirulhisyam Hashim and Muhammad Akmal Chaudhary
Sensors 2021, 21(4), 1428; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21041428 - 18 Feb 2021
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4463
Abstract
The development of the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promotes the integration of the cross-platform systems in fog computing, which enable users to obtain access to multiple application located in different geographical locations. Fog users at the network’s edge communicate with many fog [...] Read more.
The development of the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promotes the integration of the cross-platform systems in fog computing, which enable users to obtain access to multiple application located in different geographical locations. Fog users at the network’s edge communicate with many fog servers in different fogs and newly joined servers that they had never contacted before. This communication complexity brings enormous security challenges and potential vulnerability to malicious threats. The attacker may replace the edge device with a fake one and authenticate it as a legitimate device. Therefore, to prevent unauthorized users from accessing fog servers, we propose a new secure and lightweight multi-factor authentication scheme for cross-platform IoT systems (SELAMAT). The proposed scheme extends the Kerberos workflow and utilizes the AES-ECC algorithm for efficient encryption keys management and secure communication between the edge nodes and fog node servers to establish secure mutual authentication. The scheme was tested for its security analysis using the formal security verification under the widely accepted AVISPA tool. We proved our scheme using Burrows Abdi Needham’s logic (BAN logic) to prove secure mutual authentication. The results show that the SELAMAT scheme provides better security, functionality, communication, and computation cost than the existing schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Securing the Industrial Internet of Things)
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21 pages, 1832 KiB  
Article
MAKE-IT—A Lightweight Mutual Authentication and Key Exchange Protocol for Industrial Internet of Things
by Karanjeet Choudhary, Gurjot Singh Gaba, Ismail Butun and Pardeep Kumar
Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5166; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185166 - 10 Sep 2020
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 4930
Abstract
Continuous development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has opened up enormous opportunities for the engineers to enhance the efficiency of the machines. Despite the development, many industry administrators still fear to use Internet for operating their machines due to untrusted nature [...] Read more.
Continuous development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has opened up enormous opportunities for the engineers to enhance the efficiency of the machines. Despite the development, many industry administrators still fear to use Internet for operating their machines due to untrusted nature of the communication channel. The utilization of internet for managing industrial operations can be widespread adopted if the authentication of the entities are performed and trust is ensured. The traditional schemes with their inherent security issues and other complexities, cannot be directly deployed to resource constrained network devices. Therefore, we have proposed a strong mutual authentication and secret key exchange protocol to address the vulnerabilities of the existing schemes. We have used various cryptography operations such as hashing, ciphering, and so forth, for providing secure mutual authentication and secret key exchange between different entities to restrict unauthorized access. Performance and security analysis clearly demonstrates that the proposed work is energy efficient (computation and communication inexpensive) and more robust against the attacks in comparison to the traditional schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Securing the Industrial Internet of Things)
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Review

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24 pages, 1158 KiB  
Review
Cybersecurity in ICT Supply Chains: Key Challenges and a Relevant Architecture
by Xavi Masip-Bruin, Eva Marín-Tordera, José Ruiz, Admela Jukan, Panagiotis Trakadas, Ales Cernivec, Antonio Lioy, Diego López, Henrique Santos, Antonis Gonos, Ana Silva, José Soriano and Grigorios Kalogiannis
Sensors 2021, 21(18), 6057; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21186057 - 09 Sep 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 5056
Abstract
The specific demands of supply chains built upon large and complex IoT systems, make it a must to design a coordinated framework for cyber resilience provisioning, intended to guarantee trusted supply chains of ICT systems, built upon distributed, dynamic, potentially insecure, and heterogeneous [...] Read more.
The specific demands of supply chains built upon large and complex IoT systems, make it a must to design a coordinated framework for cyber resilience provisioning, intended to guarantee trusted supply chains of ICT systems, built upon distributed, dynamic, potentially insecure, and heterogeneous ICT infrastructures. As such, the solution proposed in this paper is envisioned to deal with the whole supply chain system components, from the IoT ecosystem to the infrastructure connecting them, addressing security and privacy functionalities related to risks and vulnerabilities management, accountability, and mitigation strategies, as well as security metrics and evidence-based security assurance. In this paper, we present FISHY as a preliminary architecture that is designed to orchestrate existing and beyond state-of-the-art security appliances in composed ICT scenarios. To this end, the FISHY architecture leverages the capabilities of programmable networks and IT infrastructure through seamless orchestration and instantiation of novel security services, both in real-time and proactively. The paper also includes a thorough business analysis to go far beyond the technical benefits of a potential FISHY adoption, as well as three real-world use cases highlighting the envisioned benefits of a potential FISHY adoption. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Securing the Industrial Internet of Things)
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22 pages, 899 KiB  
Review
Security Issues and Software Updates Management in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Era
by Imanol Mugarza, Jose Luis Flores and Jose Luis Montero
Sensors 2020, 20(24), 7160; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20247160 - 14 Dec 2020
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 6965
Abstract
New generation Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS) are providing advanced connectivity features, enabling new automation applications, services and business models in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) era. Nevertheless, due to the extended attack surface and increasing number of cyber-attacks against industrial [...] Read more.
New generation Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS) are providing advanced connectivity features, enabling new automation applications, services and business models in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) era. Nevertheless, due to the extended attack surface and increasing number of cyber-attacks against industrial equipment, security concerns arise. Hence, these systems should provide enough protection and resiliency against cyber-attacks throughout their entire lifespan, which, in the case of industrial systems, may last several decades. A sound and complete management of security issues and software updates is fundamental to achieve such goal, since leading-edge security countermeasures implemented in the development phase may eventually become out-of-date. In this article, a review of the IEC 62443 industrial security standard concerning the security maintenance of IIoT systems and components is given, along with guidelines for the implementation of such processes. As concluded, the security issues and software updates management shall jointly be addressed by the asset owner, service providers and product suppliers. These security processes should also be compatible with the safety procedures established by safety standards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Securing the Industrial Internet of Things)
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