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12 pages, 325 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Malware Detection of Hangul Word Processor Files Using Spatial Pyramid Average Pooling

by Young-Seob Jeong, Jiyoung Woo, SangMin Lee and Ah Reum Kang

Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5265; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185265 - 15 Sep 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2743

Abstract

Malware detection of non-executables has recently been drawing much attention because ordinary users are vulnerable to such malware. Hangul Word Processor (HWP) is software for editing non-executable text files and is widely used in South Korea. New malware for HWP files continues to [...] Read more.

Malware detection of non-executables has recently been drawing much attention because ordinary users are vulnerable to such malware. Hangul Word Processor (HWP) is software for editing non-executable text files and is widely used in South Korea. New malware for HWP files continues to appear because of the circumstances between South Korea and North Korea. There have been various studies to solve this problem, but most of them are limited because they require a large amount of effort to define features based on expert knowledge. In this study, we designed a convolutional neural network to detect malware within HWP files. Our proposed model takes a raw byte stream as input and predicts whether it contains malicious actions or not. To incorporate highly variable lengths of HWP byte streams, we propose a new padding method and a spatial pyramid average pooling layer. We experimentally demonstrate that our model is not only effective, but also efficient. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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20 pages, 6563 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Security Concept Based on Scaler Distribution of a Novel Intrusion Detection Device for Wireless Sensor Networks in a Smart Environment

by Kenneth Rodolphe Chabi Boni, Lizhong Xu, Zhe Chen and Thelma Dede Baddoo

Sensors 2020, 20(17), 4717; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174717 - 21 Aug 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2042

Abstract

Following the significant improvement of technology in terms of data collection and treatment during the last decades, the notion of a smart environment has widely taken an important pedestal in the science industry. Built in order to better manage assets, smart environments provide [...] Read more.

Following the significant improvement of technology in terms of data collection and treatment during the last decades, the notion of a smart environment has widely taken an important pedestal in the science industry. Built in order to better manage assets, smart environments provide a livable environment for users or citizens through the deployment of sensors responsible for data collection. Much research has been done to provide security to the involved data, which are extremely sensitive. However, due to the small size and the memory constraint of the sensors, many of these works are difficult to implement. In this paper, a different concept for wireless sensor security in smart environments is presented. The proposed security system, which is based on the scaler distribution of a novel electronic device, the intrusion detection system (IDS), reduces the computational functions of the sensors and therefore maximizes their efficiency. The IDS also introduces the concept of the feedback signal and “trust table” used to trigger the detection and isolation mechanism in case of attacks. Generally, it ensures the whole network security through cooperation with other IDSs and, therefore, eliminates the problem of security holes that may occur while adopting such a security technique. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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36 pages, 1708 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A WSN Layer-Cluster Key Management Scheme Based on Quadratic Polynomial and Lagrange Interpolation Polynomial

by Xiaogang Wang, Zhongfan Yang, Zhiqiang Feng and Jun Zhao

Sensors 2020, 20(16), 4388; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20164388 - 06 Aug 2020

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2056

Abstract

Since current key management schemes are mainly designed for static and planar networks, they are not very suitable for the layer-cluster wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a WSN layer-cluster key management scheme based on quadratic polynomial and Lagrange interpolation polynomial is proposed, in which [...] Read more.

Since current key management schemes are mainly designed for static and planar networks, they are not very suitable for the layer-cluster wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a WSN layer-cluster key management scheme based on quadratic polynomial and Lagrange interpolation polynomial is proposed, in which the main idea of this scheme along the research line of broadcast identity authentication, session key, group key, network key and personal key. Specifically, authentication key can be established on the basis of Fourier series for identity authentication; session key is established by a multiple asymmetric quadratic polynomial, in which session key information is encrypted by the authentication key to ensure the security of intermediate interactive information; based on the former two keys, group key is established on the basis of Lagrange interpolation polynomial, in which the nodes of the cluster are not directly involved; the generation and management of network key is similar to the group key, in which the establishment idea is to regard the BS and all cluster heads as a group; the generation and management of personal key is also similar to the group key, the difference is that the personal key can be obtained by cluster nodes through getting the Lagrange interpolation polynomial coefficients based on their own random key information. It is analyzed that the proposed layer-cluster key management scheme can guarantee the identity of network nodes firstly through forward authentication and reverse authentication, and session key, group key and network key will guarantee the independence of the keys’ management and avoids the problem of single point failure compared with LEAP protocol, and personal key will guarantee the privacy of network. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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19 pages, 500 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of an IoT Application-Scoped Access Control Model over a Publish/Subscribe Architecture Based on FIWARE

by Alejandro Pozo, Álvaro Alonso and Joaquín Salvachúa

Sensors 2020, 20(15), 4341; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20154341 - 04 Aug 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3006

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) brings plenty of opportunities to enhance society’s activities, from improving a factory’s production chain to facilitating people’s household tasks. However, it has also brought new security breaches, compromising privacy and authenticity. IoT devices are vulnerable to being accessed [...] Read more.

The Internet of Things (IoT) brings plenty of opportunities to enhance society’s activities, from improving a factory’s production chain to facilitating people’s household tasks. However, it has also brought new security breaches, compromising privacy and authenticity. IoT devices are vulnerable to being accessed from the Internet; they lack sufficient resources to face cyber-attack threats. Keeping a balance between access control and the devices’ resource consumption has become one of the highest priorities of IoT research. In this paper, we evaluate an access control architecture based on the IAACaaS (IoT application-Scoped Access Control as a Service) model with the aim of protecting IoT devices that communicate using the Publish/Subscribe pattern. IAACaaS is based on the OAuth 2.0 authorization framework, which externalizes the identity and access control infrastructure of applications. In our evaluation, we implement the model using FIWARE Generic Enablers and deploy them for a smart buildings use case with a wireless communication. Then, we compare the performance of two different approaches in the data-sharing between sensors and the Publish/Subscribe broker, using Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) protocols. We conclude that the integration of Publish/Subscribe IoT deployments with IAACaaS adds an extra layer of security and access control without compromising the system’s performance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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26 pages, 1219 KiB

Open AccessArticle

SLUA-WSN: Secure and Lightweight Three-Factor-Based User Authentication Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

by SungJin Yu and YoungHo Park

Sensors 2020, 20(15), 4143; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20154143 - 25 Jul 2020

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 7616

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are composed of multiple sensor nodes with limited storage, computation, power, and communication capabilities and are widely used in various fields such as banks, hospitals, institutes to national defense, research, and so on. However, useful services are susceptible to [...] Read more.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are composed of multiple sensor nodes with limited storage, computation, power, and communication capabilities and are widely used in various fields such as banks, hospitals, institutes to national defense, research, and so on. However, useful services are susceptible to security threats because sensitive data in various fields are exchanged via a public channel. Thus, secure authentication protocols are indispensable to provide various services in WSN. In 2019, Mo and Chen presented a lightweight secure user authentication scheme in WSN. We discover that Mo and Chen’s scheme suffers from various security flaws, such as session key exposure and masquerade attacks, and does not provide anonymity, untraceability, and mutual authentication. To resolve the security weaknesses of Mo and Chen’s scheme, we propose a secure and lightweight three-factor-based user authentication protocol for WSN, called SLUA-WSN. The proposed SLUA-WSN can prevent security threats and ensure anonymity, untraceability, and mutual authentication. We analyze the security of SLUA-WSN through the informal and formal analysis, including Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN) logic, Real-or-Random (ROR) model, and Automated Verification of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulation. Moreover, we compare the performance of SLUA-WSN with some existing schemes. The proposed SLUA-WSN better ensures the security and efficiency than previous proposed scheme and is suitable for practical WSN applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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18 pages, 4262 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Secure Communications for Resource-Constrained IoT Devices

by Abd-Elhamid M. Taha, Abdulmonem M. Rashwan and Hossam S. Hassanein

Sensors 2020, 20(13), 3637; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20133637 - 29 Jun 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3779

Abstract

The importance of securing communications on the Internet of Things (IoT) cannot be overstated. This is especially the case in light of the increasing proliferation of IoT devices and instances, as well as the growing dependence on their usage. Meanwhile, there have recently [...] Read more.

The importance of securing communications on the Internet of Things (IoT) cannot be overstated. This is especially the case in light of the increasing proliferation of IoT devices and instances, as well as the growing dependence on their usage. Meanwhile, there have recently been mounting concerns over a wide array of vulnerabilities in IoT communications. The objective of this work is to address constraints in IoT devices that are “resource-constrained”, which are devices that are limited in terms of computing, energy, communication, or range capabilities, whether in terms of nominal or temporal limitations. Specifically, we propose a framework for resource-aiding constrained devices to facilitate secure communication. Without loss of generalization, the framework’s viability is illustrated by focusing on a group of security functions that utilize message authentication codes, which is a strongly representative example of resource-intensive security functions. Aspects of the framework are further demonstrated in processing cores commonly used in commercial IoT devices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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15 pages, 1021 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Trust Based Multipath QoS Routing Protocol for Mission-Critical Data Transmission in Tactical Ad-Hoc Networks

by DooHo Keum, Jihun Lim and Young-Bae Ko

Sensors 2020, 20(11), 3330; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20113330 - 11 Jun 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2674

Abstract

In tactical ad-hoc networks, the importance of various tactical sensors and mission-critical data is increasing owing to their role in determining a tactical situation and ensuring the viability of soldiers. In particular, the reliability of mission-critical data has to be ensured for accurate [...] Read more.

In tactical ad-hoc networks, the importance of various tactical sensors and mission-critical data is increasing owing to their role in determining a tactical situation and ensuring the viability of soldiers. In particular, the reliability of mission-critical data has to be ensured for accurate situation determination and decision making. However, managing the network and trustworthiness in an environment where malicious nodes exist and a large amount of mission-critical data occur is a challenging issue. To solve these issues, a routing protocol is needed that can effectively detect malicious nodes and ensure the reliability and quality of service (QoS) of mission-critical data. In this paper, we propose a trust-based multipath QoS routing protocol (called MC_TQR) for tactical ad-hoc networks that can detect malicious nodes and satisfy the requirements of mission-critical data. The proposed scheme is verified using an OPNET simulator, and the results confirm the improved network performance when compared with existing schemes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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20 pages, 9796 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Blockchain Mechanism and Symmetric Encryption in A Wireless Sensor Network

by Alma E. Guerrero-Sanchez, Edgar A. Rivas-Araiza, Jose Luis Gonzalez-Cordoba, Manuel Toledano-Ayala and Andras Takacs

Sensors 2020, 20(10), 2798; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20102798 - 14 May 2020

Cited by 47 | Viewed by 5678

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm allows the connection and exchange of information between millions of smart devices. This paradigm grows and develops exponentially as do the risks and attacks on IoT infrastructures. Security, privacy, reliability, and autonomy are the most important requirements [...] Read more.

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm allows the connection and exchange of information between millions of smart devices. This paradigm grows and develops exponentially as do the risks and attacks on IoT infrastructures. Security, privacy, reliability, and autonomy are the most important requirements in IoT Systems. If these issues are not guaranteed, the IoT system could be susceptible to malicious users and malicious use. In centralized IoT systems, attacks and risks are greater, especially when data is transmitted between devices and shared with other organizations. To avoid these types of situations, this work presents a decentralized system that guarantees the autonomy and security of an IoT system. The proposed methodology helps to protect data integrity and availability based on the security advantages provided by blockchain and the use of cryptographic tools. The accuracy of the proposed methodology was measured on a temperature and humidity sensing IoT-based Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The obtained results prove that the proposal fulfils the main requirements of an IoT system. It is autonomous, secure to share and send information between devices and users, has privacy, it is reliable, and the information is available in the infrastructure. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that the proposal is less susceptible to the most frequent attacks against IoT systems, such as linking attack, man in the middle, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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22 pages, 6385 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Local Differential Privacy Protection of High-Dimensional Perceptual Data by the Refined Bayes Network

by Chunhua Ju, Qiuyang Gu, Gongxing Wu and Shuangzhu Zhang

Sensors 2020, 20(9), 2516; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20092516 - 29 Apr 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2632

Abstract

Although the Crowd-Sensing perception system brings great data value to people through the release and analysis of high-dimensional perception data, it causes great hidden danger to the privacy of participants in the meantime. Currently, various privacy protection methods based on differential privacy have [...] Read more.

Although the Crowd-Sensing perception system brings great data value to people through the release and analysis of high-dimensional perception data, it causes great hidden danger to the privacy of participants in the meantime. Currently, various privacy protection methods based on differential privacy have been proposed, but most of them cannot simultaneously solve the complex attribute association problem between high-dimensional perception data and the privacy threat problems from untrustworthy servers. To address this problem, we put forward a local privacy protection based on Bayes network for high-dimensional perceptual data in this paper. This mechanism realizes the local data protection of the users at the very beginning, eliminates the possibility of other parties directly accessing the user’s original data, and fundamentally protects the user’s data privacy. During this process, after receiving the data of the user’s local privacy protection, the perception server recognizes the dimensional correlation of the high-dimensional data based on the Bayes network, divides the high-dimensional data attribute set into multiple relatively independent low-dimensional attribute sets, and then sequentially synthesizes the new dataset. It can effectively retain the attribute dimension correlation of the original perception data, and ensure that the synthetic dataset and the original dataset have as similar statistical characteristics as possible. To verify its effectiveness, we conduct a multitude of simulation experiments. Results have shown that the synthetic data of this mechanism under the effective local privacy protection has relatively high data utility. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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18 pages, 730 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analyzing the Effectiveness and Contribution of Each Axis of Tri-Axial Accelerometer Sensor for Accurate Activity Recognition

by Abdul Rehman Javed, Muhammad Usman Sarwar, Suleman Khan, Celestine Iwendi, Mohit Mittal and Neeraj Kumar

Sensors 2020, 20(8), 2216; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20082216 - 14 Apr 2020

Cited by 85 | Viewed by 5164

Abstract

Recognizing human physical activities from streaming smartphone sensor readings is essential for the successful realization of a smart environment. Physical activity recognition is one of the active research topics to provide users the adaptive services using smart devices. Existing physical activity recognition methods [...] Read more.

Recognizing human physical activities from streaming smartphone sensor readings is essential for the successful realization of a smart environment. Physical activity recognition is one of the active research topics to provide users the adaptive services using smart devices. Existing physical activity recognition methods lack in providing fast and accurate recognition of activities. This paper proposes an approach to recognize physical activities using only2-axes of the smartphone accelerometer sensor. It also investigates the effectiveness and contribution of each axis of the accelerometer in the recognition of physical activities. To implement our approach, data of daily life activities are collected labeled using the accelerometer from 12 participants. Furthermore, three machine learning classifiers are implemented to train the model on the collected dataset and in predicting the activities. Our proposed approach provides more promising results compared to the existing techniques and presents a strong rationale behind the effectiveness and contribution of each axis of an accelerometer for activity recognition. To ensure the reliability of the model, we evaluate the proposed approach and observations on standard publicly available dataset WISDM also and provide a comparative analysis with state-of-the-art studies. The proposed approach achieved 93% weighted accuracy with Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) classifier, which is almost 13% higher than the existing methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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13 pages, 1891 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Battery Draining Attack and Defense against Power Saving Wireless LAN Devices

by Il-Gu Lee, Kyungmin Go and Jung Hoon Lee

Sensors 2020, 20(7), 2043; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20072043 - 05 Apr 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3268

Abstract

Wi-Fi technology connects sensor-based things that operate with small batteries, and allows them to access the Internet from anywhere at any time and perform networking. It has become a critical element in many areas of daily life and industry, including smart homes, smart [...] Read more.

Wi-Fi technology connects sensor-based things that operate with small batteries, and allows them to access the Internet from anywhere at any time and perform networking. It has become a critical element in many areas of daily life and industry, including smart homes, smart factories, smart grids, and smart cities. The Wi-Fi-based Internet of things is gradually expanding its range of uses from new industries to areas that are intimately connected to people’s lives, safety, and property. Wi-Fi technology has undergone a 20-year standardization process and continues to evolve to improve transmission speeds and service quality. Simultaneously, it has also been strengthening power-saving technology and security technology to improve energy efficiency and security while maintaining backward compatibility with past standards. This study analyzed the security vulnerabilities of the Wi-Fi power-saving mechanism used in smart devices and experimentally proved the feasibility of a battery draining attack (BDA) on commercial smartphones. The results of the experiment showed that when a battery draining attack was performed on power-saving Wi-Fi, 14 times the amount of energy was consumed compared with when a battery draining attack was not performed. This study analyzed the security vulnerabilities of the power-saving mechanism and discusses countermeasures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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15 pages, 2210 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Key Management Scheme Based on Pairing-Free Identity Based Digital Signature Algorithm for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

by Erdong Yuan, Liejun Wang, Shuli Cheng, Naixiang Ao and Qingrui Guo

Sensors 2020, 20(6), 1543; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20061543 - 11 Mar 2020

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 2417

Abstract

The secure transmission of data within a network has received great attention. As the core of the security management mechanism, the key management scheme design needs further research. In view of the safety and energy consumption problems in recent papers, we propose a [...] Read more.

The secure transmission of data within a network has received great attention. As the core of the security management mechanism, the key management scheme design needs further research. In view of the safety and energy consumption problems in recent papers, we propose a key management scheme based on the pairing-free identity based digital signature (PF-IBS) algorithm for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (HWSNs). Our scheme uses the PF-IBS algorithm to complete message authentication, which is safer and more energy efficient than some recent schemes. Moreover, we use the base station (BS) as the processing center for the huge data in the network, thereby saving network energy consumption and improving the network life cycle. Finally, we indirectly prevent the attacker from capturing relay nodes that upload data between clusters in the network (some cluster head nodes cannot communicate directly). Through performance evaluation, the scheme we proposed reasonably sacrifices part of the storage space in exchange for entire network security while saving energy consumption. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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24 pages, 4939 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Efficient Certificateless Aggregate Signature Scheme for Blockchain-Based Medical Cyber Physical Systems

by Hong Shu, Ping Qi, Yongqing Huang, Fulong Chen, Dong Xie and Liping Sun

Sensors 2020, 20(5), 1521; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20051521 - 10 Mar 2020

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 5070

Abstract

Different from the traditional healthcare field, Medical Cyber Physical Systems (MCPS) rely more on wireless wearable devices and medical applications to provide better medical services. The secure storage and sharing of medical data are facing great challenges. Blockchain technology with decentralization, security, credibility [...] Read more.

Different from the traditional healthcare field, Medical Cyber Physical Systems (MCPS) rely more on wireless wearable devices and medical applications to provide better medical services. The secure storage and sharing of medical data are facing great challenges. Blockchain technology with decentralization, security, credibility and tamper-proof is an effective way to solve this problem. However, capacity limitation is one of the main reasons affecting the improvement of blockchain performance. Certificateless aggregation signature schemes can greatly tackle the difficulty of blockchain expansion. In this paper, we describe a two-layer system model in which medical records are stored off-blockchain and shared on-blockchain. Furthermore, a multi-trapdoor hash function is proposed. Based on the proposed multi-trapdoor hash function, we present a certificateless aggregate signature scheme for blockchain-based MCPS. The purpose is to realize the authentication of related medical staffs, medical equipment, and medical apps, ensure the integrity of medical records, and support the secure storage and sharing of medical information. The proposed scheme is highly computationally efficient because it does not use bilinear maps and exponential operations. Many certificateless aggregate signature schemes without bilinear maps in Internet of things (IoT) have been proposed in recent years, but they are not applied to the medical field, and they do not consider the security requirements of medical data. The proposed scheme in this paper has high computing and storage efficiency, while meeting the security requirements in MCPS. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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16 pages, 1263 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Elliptic Curve Cryptography for Wireless Sensor Networks Using the Number Theoretic Transform

by Utku Gulen and Selcuk Baktir

Sensors 2020, 20(5), 1507; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20051507 - 09 Mar 2020

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3639

Abstract

We implement elliptic curve cryptography on the MSP430 which is a commonly used microcontroller in wireless sensor network nodes. We use the number theoretic transform to perform finite field multiplication and squaring as required in elliptic curve scalar point multiplication. We take advantage [...] Read more.

We implement elliptic curve cryptography on the MSP430 which is a commonly used microcontroller in wireless sensor network nodes. We use the number theoretic transform to perform finite field multiplication and squaring as required in elliptic curve scalar point multiplication. We take advantage of the fast Fourier transform for the first time in the literature to speed up the number theoretic transform for an efficient realization of elliptic curve cryptography. Our implementation achieves elliptic curve scalar point multiplication in only

0.65

s and

1.31

s for multiplication of fixed and random points, respectively, and has similar or better timing performance compared to previous works in the literature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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27 pages, 1295 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Designing Efficient Sinkhole Attack Detection Mechanism in Edge-Based IoT Deployment

by Sumit Pundir, Mohammad Wazid, Devesh Pratap Singh, Ashok Kumar Das, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues and Youngho Park

Sensors 2020, 20(5), 1300; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20051300 - 27 Feb 2020

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 5589

Abstract

The sinkhole attack in an edge-based Internet of Things (IoT) environment (EIoT) can devastate and ruin the whole functioning of the communication. The sinkhole attacker nodes (

S H A

s) have some properties (for example, they first attract the other normal nodes [...] Read more.

The sinkhole attack in an edge-based Internet of Things (IoT) environment (EIoT) can devastate and ruin the whole functioning of the communication. The sinkhole attacker nodes (

S H A

s) have some properties (for example, they first attract the other normal nodes for the shortest path to the destination and when normal nodes initiate the process of sending their packets through that path (i.e., via

S H A

), the attacker nodes start disrupting the traffic flow of the network). In the presence of

S H A

s, the destination (for example, sink node i.e., gateway/base station) does not receive the required information or it may receive partial or modified information. This results in reduction of the network performance and degradation in efficiency and reliability of the communication. In the presence of such an attack, the throughput decreases, end-to-end delay increases and packet delivery ratio decreases. Moreover, it may harm other network performance parameters. Hence, it becomes extremely essential to provide an effective and competent scheme to mitigate this attack in EIoT. In this paper, an intrusion detection scheme to protect EIoT environment against sinkhole attack is proposed, which is named as SAD-EIoT. In SAD-EIoT, the resource rich edge nodes (edge servers) perform the detection of different types of sinkhole attacker nodes with the help of exchanging messages. The practical demonstration of SAD-EIoT is also provided using the well known NS2 simulator to compute the various performance parameters. Additionally, the security analysis of SAD-EIoT is conducted to prove its resiliency against various types of

S H A

s. SAD-EIoT achieves around

95.83 %

detection rate and

1.03 %

false positive rate, which are considerably better than other related existing schemes. Apart from those, SAD-EIoT is proficient with respect to computation and communication costs. Eventually, SAD-EIoT will be a suitable match for those applications which can be used in critical and sensitive operations (for example, surveillance, security and monitoring systems). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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18 pages, 803 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Identity Authentication Method of a MIoT Device Based on Radio Frequency (RF) Fingerprint Technology

by Qiao Tian, Yun Lin, Xinghao Guo, Jin Wang, Osama AlFarraj and Amr Tolba

Sensors 2020, 20(4), 1213; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20041213 - 22 Feb 2020

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 5735

Abstract

With the continuous development of science and engineering technology, our society has entered the era of the mobile Internet of Things (MIoT). MIoT refers to the combination of advanced manufacturing technologies with the Internet of Things (IoT) to create a flexible digital manufacturing [...] Read more.

With the continuous development of science and engineering technology, our society has entered the era of the mobile Internet of Things (MIoT). MIoT refers to the combination of advanced manufacturing technologies with the Internet of Things (IoT) to create a flexible digital manufacturing ecosystem. The wireless communication technology in the Internet of Things is a bridge between mobile devices. Therefore, the introduction of machine learning (ML) algorithms into MIoT wireless communication has become a research direction of concern. However, the traditional key-based wireless communication method demonstrates security problems and cannot meet the security requirements of the MIoT. Based on the research on the communication of the physical layer and the support vector data description (SVDD) algorithm, this paper establishes a radio frequency fingerprint (RFF or RF fingerprint) authentication model for a communication device. The communication device in the MIoT is accurately and efficiently identified by extracting the radio frequency fingerprint of the communication signal. In the simulation experiment, this paper introduces the neighborhood component analysis (NCA) method and the SVDD method to establish a communication device authentication model. At a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 15 dB, the authentic devices authentication success rate (ASR) and the rogue devices detection success rate (RSR) are both 90%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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22 pages, 3931 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lightweight Fine-Grained Access Control for Wireless Body Area Networks

by Mohammad Ali, Mohammad-Reza Sadeghi and Ximeng Liu

Sensors 2020, 20(4), 1088; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20041088 - 17 Feb 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3493

Abstract

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a highly promising technology enabling health providers to remotely monitor vital parameters of patients via tiny wearable and implantable sensors. In a WBAN, medical data is collected by several tiny sensors and usually transmitted to a server-side [...] Read more.

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a highly promising technology enabling health providers to remotely monitor vital parameters of patients via tiny wearable and implantable sensors. In a WBAN, medical data is collected by several tiny sensors and usually transmitted to a server-side (e.g., a cloud service provider) for long-term storage and online/offline processing. However, as the health data includes several sensitive information, providing confidentiality and fine-grained access control is necessary to preserve the privacy of patients. In this paper, we design an attribute-based encryption (ABE) scheme with lightweight encryption and decryption mechanisms. Our scheme enables tiny sensors to encrypt the collected data under an access control policy by performing very few computational operations. Also, the computational overhead on the users in the decryption phase is lightweight, and most of the operations are performed by the cloud server. In comparison with some excellent ABE schemes, our encryption mechanism is more than 100 times faster, and the communication overhead in our scheme decreases significantly. We provide the security definition for the new primitive and prove its security in the standard model and under the hardness assumption of the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) problem. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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20 pages, 1136 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Smartphone-Based Platform for Secure Multi-Hop Message Dissemination in VANETs

by Hiram Galeana-Zapién, Miguel Morales-Sandoval, Carlos A. Leyva-Vázquez and Javier Rubio-Loyola

Sensors 2020, 20(2), 330; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20020330 - 07 Jan 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3319

Abstract

Vehicular ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are recognized as a cornerstone of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to enable the exchange of information among vehicles, which is crucial for the provision of safety-related and entertainment applications. However, practical useful realizations of VANETs are still missing, mainly [...] Read more.

Vehicular ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are recognized as a cornerstone of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to enable the exchange of information among vehicles, which is crucial for the provision of safety-related and entertainment applications. However, practical useful realizations of VANETs are still missing, mainly because of the elevated costs and the lack of a final standardization. In this regard, the feasibility of using smartphones as nodes in VANETs has been explored focusing on small-scale deployments to mainly validate single-hop communication capabilities. Moreover, existing smartphone-based platforms do not consider two crucial requirements in VANETs, namely, multi-hop communication and the provision of security services in the message dissemination process. Furthermore, the problem of securing message dissemination in VANETs is generally analyzed through simulation tools, while performance evaluations on smart devices have not been reported so far. In this paper, we aim to fill this void by designing a fully on-device platform for secure multi-hop message dissemination. We address the multi-hop nature of message dissemination in VANETs by integrating a location-based protocol that enables the selection of relay nodes and retransmissions criteria. As a main distinction, the platform incorporates a novel certificateless cryptographic scheme for ensuring data integrity and nodes’ authentication, suitable for VANETs lacking of infrastructure. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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21 pages, 3532 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Data Clustering Algorithm for Detecting Selective Forwarding Attack in Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

by Hao Fu, Yinghong Liu, Zhe Dong and Yuanming Wu

Sensors 2020, 20(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20010023 - 19 Dec 2019

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 3782

Abstract

In cluster-based wireless sensor networks, cluster heads (CHs) gather and fuse data packets from sensor nodes; then, they forward fused packets to the sink node (SN). This helps wireless sensor networks balance energy effectively and efficiently to prolong their lifetime. However, cluster-based WSNs [...] Read more.

In cluster-based wireless sensor networks, cluster heads (CHs) gather and fuse data packets from sensor nodes; then, they forward fused packets to the sink node (SN). This helps wireless sensor networks balance energy effectively and efficiently to prolong their lifetime. However, cluster-based WSNs are vulnerable to selective forwarding attacks. Compromised CHs would become malicious and launch selective forwarding attacks in which they drop part of or all the packets from other nodes. In this paper, a data clustering algorithm (DCA) for detecting a selective forwarding attack (DCA-SF) is proposed. It can capture and isolate malicious CHs that have launched selective forwarding attacks by clustering their cumulative forwarding rates (CFRs). The DCA-SF algorithm has been strengthened by changing the DCA parameters (Eps, Minpts) adaptively. The simulation results show that the DCA-SF has a low missed detection rate of 1.04% and a false detection rate of 0.42% respectively with low energy consumption. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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21 pages, 464 KiB

Open AccessArticle

LDAKM-EIoT: Lightweight Device Authentication and Key Management Mechanism for Edge-Based IoT Deployment

by Mohammad Wazid, Ashok Kumar Das, Sachin Shetty, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues and Youngho Park

Sensors 2019, 19(24), 5539; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19245539 - 14 Dec 2019

Cited by 56 | Viewed by 4569

Abstract

In recent years, edge computing has emerged as a new concept in the computing paradigm that empowers several future technologies, such as 5G, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and the Internet of Things (IoT), by providing cloud computing facilities, as well as services to the end [...] Read more.

In recent years, edge computing has emerged as a new concept in the computing paradigm that empowers several future technologies, such as 5G, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and the Internet of Things (IoT), by providing cloud computing facilities, as well as services to the end users. However, open communication among the entities in an edge based IoT environment makes it vulnerable to various potential attacks that are executed by an adversary. Device authentication is one of the prominent techniques in security that permits an IoT device to authenticate mutually with a cloud server with the help of an edge node. If authentication is successful, they establish a session key between them for secure communication. To achieve this goal, a novel device authentication and key management mechanism for the edge based IoT environment, called the lightweight authentication and key management scheme for the edge based IoT environment (LDAKM-EIoT), was designed. The detailed security analysis and formal security verification conducted by the widely used “Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA)” tool prove that the proposed LDAKM-EIoT is secure against several attack vectors that exist in the infrastructure of the edge based IoT environment. The elaborated comparative analysis of the proposed LDAKM-EIoT and different closely related schemes provides evidence that LDAKM-EIoT is more secure with less communication and computation costs. Finally, the network performance parameters are calculated and analyzed using the NS2 simulation to demonstrate the practical facets of the proposed LDAKM-EIoT. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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17 pages, 2520 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Securing Cryptographic Chips against Scan-Based Attacks in Wireless Sensor Network Applications

by WeiZheng Wang, Zhuo Deng, Jin Wang, Arun Kumar Sangaiah, Shuo Cai, Zafer Almakhadmeh and Amr Tolba

Sensors 2019, 19(20), 4598; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19204598 - 22 Oct 2019

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3497

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have deeply influenced the working and living styles of human beings. Information security and privacy for WSN is particularly crucial. Cryptographic algorithms are extensively exploited in WSN applications to ensure the security. They are usually implemented in specific chips [...] Read more.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have deeply influenced the working and living styles of human beings. Information security and privacy for WSN is particularly crucial. Cryptographic algorithms are extensively exploited in WSN applications to ensure the security. They are usually implemented in specific chips to achieve high data throughout with less computational resources. Cryptographic hardware should be rigidly tested to guarantee the correctness of encryption operation. Scan design improves significantly the test quality of chips and thus is widely used in semiconductor industry. Nevertheless, scan design provides a backdoor for attackers to deduce the cipher key of a cryptographic core. To protect the security of the cryptographic system we first present a secure scan architecture, in which an automatic test control circuitry is inserted to isolate the cipher key in test mode and clear the sensitive information at mode switching. Then, the weaknesses of this architecture are analyzed and an enhanced scheme using concept of test authorization is proposed. If the correct authorization key is applied within the specific time, the normal test can be performed. Otherwise, only secure scan test can be performed. The enhanced scan scheme ensures the security of cryptographic chips while remaining the advantages of scan design. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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Review

Jump to: Research

37 pages, 2376 KiB

Open AccessReview

Hardware Trojans in Chips: A Survey for Detection and Prevention

by Chen Dong, Yi Xu, Ximeng Liu, Fan Zhang, Guorong He and Yuzhong Chen

Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5165; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185165 - 10 Sep 2020

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 10877

Abstract

Diverse and wide-range applications of integrated circuits (ICs) and the development of Cyber Physical System (CPS), more and more third-party manufacturers are involved in the manufacturing of ICs. Unfortunately, like software, hardware can also be subjected to malicious attacks. Untrusted outsourced manufacturing tools [...] Read more.

Diverse and wide-range applications of integrated circuits (ICs) and the development of Cyber Physical System (CPS), more and more third-party manufacturers are involved in the manufacturing of ICs. Unfortunately, like software, hardware can also be subjected to malicious attacks. Untrusted outsourced manufacturing tools and intellectual property (IP) cores may bring enormous risks from highly integrated. Attributed to this manufacturing model, the malicious circuits (known as Hardware Trojans, HTs) can be implanted during the most designing and manufacturing stages of the ICs, causing a change of functionality, leakage of information, even a denial of services (DoS), and so on. In this paper, a survey of HTs is presented, which shows the threatens of chips, and the state-of-the-art preventing and detecting techniques. Starting from the introduction of HT structures, the recent researches in the academic community about HTs is compiled and comprehensive classification of HTs is proposed. The state-of-the-art HT protection techniques with their advantages and disadvantages are further analyzed. Finally, the development trends in hardware security are highlighted. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Network)

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