In this research proposal, we particularly focus on security challenges of smart objects connected through Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks (Mobile DTNs). Mobile DTNs are continuously self-configuring, infrastructure-less networks in which mobile smart objects communicate among themselves using the same set of wireless protocols [1] outside Internet. Mobile smart objects DTNs include wildlife tracking sensor networks, Vehicular Adhoc NETworks, military battlefield networks, connecting troops, aircraft and sensors, etc. Addressing security challenges of smart objects in DTNs are often critical due to particularly the lack of end- to-end connectivity between nodes [2] and limited computational capabilities (e.g., cpu, memory, storage). Unlike the communication on the Internet, an end-to-end routing path cannot be assumed to exist between a source node (e.g., smart object) and the node of a message. As a result, ensuring access controls and privacy are difficult to establish in short-range wireless networks without persistent connectivity (no centralized access controls) in which heterogeneous smart objects with limited computational resources (no cryptography capabilities) are moving and exchanging private information (open networks).
By focusing on connectivity and confidentiality in mobile smart objects DTNs, we seek in this project to explore security threats, namely, eavesdropping on wireless communication channel, unauthorized access to smart objects and their data, tampering with sensors, and privacy risks.
In order to deal with the lack of end-to-end connectivity between nodes, message dissemination is often performed in a “store-carry-and-forward” pattern [1], where a message is stored by intermediary nodes and forwarded to nodes closer and closer to the destination until it is eventually reached or the message expires. In such scenarios, the mobility pattern of nodes plays an important role in the routing process. The assumption that nodes accept to reveal their mobility patterns and exchange the history of their movements in order to compute the best routing paths is not realistic and compromises the privacy of nodes. In fact, this information can be used to infer private information about them, as demonstrated by Gambs et al. [3]. Lack of privacy has been identified as one of the reasons for the unwillingness of nodes to participate in Mobile DTNs [4].
A key building block of a security architecture is the authorization mechanism that controls actions performed on mobile smart objects (e.g., read sensor values, update functions, ...). Traditional access control models found in usual systems (e.g., MAC, DAC, RBAC) fail to provide the essential services of authorization, authentication and access approval implied by the envisioned setting. In fact traditional models are built for “closed” and centralized systems based on shared and trusted user identities. Moreover, traditional models scarcely take contextual and resource-centric parameters into account. Such parameters include resource information, relationship between devices and their resources, dynamic or context-aware information (e.g. time of the day or geo-location). The Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), as preeminently represented by XACML [7] or newer representatives [6], seems to be a promising access control paradigm to grant policy-based access to devices in distributed and open environments. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of information managed by smart objects as well as the highly distributed nature of Mobile DTNs require the development of new ABAC models able to deal with rich meta-data and machine understandable annotations.
Since it is impossible to eliminate security threats, security resilience has been identified as a game changer approach to build self-defending security approach [5]. It relies on techniques (e.g., Behavior Software Encryption, Moving Technique Defense, Software Diversity on replicated hardware, etc.) to continuously and randomly change networks, systems and software configurations and settings to make them prohibitively expensive for attackers to figure out current execution environments, succeed in exploiting vulnerabilities. Enabling security resilience at the mobile smart objects DTNs level requires tools and algorithms to implement resilience techniques. To the best of our knowledge, security resilience in mobile DTNs and IoT have not addressed in the literature. Nevertheless, limited computational and resources in smart objects make security resilience acute challenge and requires adaptable techniques to randomize for examples communication protocols, server ports and services.
The project objective seeks to study at theoretical and applied levels, formalize, and implement a hardware and software platform for
in smart objects connected through Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks. Our research strategy aims to achieve the following results:
R1- Develop decentralized privacy preserving protocols such that mobility patterns and private information of any smart objects are not revealed. The protocols should be secure under the stronger malicious adversarial model and does not require centralized entities, trusted third parties, or specialized platforms (e.g., anonymous networks & trusted hardware).
R2- Develop attribute-based access control language with formal semantics to build and enforce security policies that deny or grant access to smart objects’ resources. The language should not rely on centralized authentication (e.g., users ids) and should take device meta-resource annotations from distributed environments into account.
R3- Develop a resilient security smart object model based on set of services (e.g., Service Oriented-Architectures) that can be composed on-the-fly and continuously adapted to internal and external changes occurred in their environments.
R4- These outcomes should be implemented as a M2M-based hardware & software platform and validated through with real-time scenarios (sport competition of connected participants). The platform is compliant with the OneM2M functional architecture (an international and open standard for M2M) whereas the hardware includes 3 Intel Edison boards (tiny computer running Yocto Linux) and 37 modules Arduino sensors.
1 Year
| NAME | GROUP | LAB |
|---|---|---|
| Youakim BADR | SOC | LIRIS |
| Omar HASAN | DRIM | LIRIS |
| Romuald THION | BD | LIRIS |
| Xiaoyang ZHU | SOC | LIRIS |
Youakim Badr, Salim Hariri, Youssif B. Al-Nashif, Erik Blasch, Resilient and Trustworthy Dynamic Data-driven Application Systems (DDDAS) Services for Crisis Management Environments, In the International Conference On Computational Science (ICCS) pp.2623-2637 (2015)
Omar Hasan, Lionel Brunie, Elisa Bertino, and Ning Shang. A Decentralized Privacy Preserving Reputation Protocol for the Malicious Adversarial Model. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS). 2013.
F. Lesueur, S. Surdu, Romuald Thion, Y. Gripay, M. Talbi. Palpable Privacy through Declarative Information Flows Tracking for Smart Buildings. In International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES), IEEE ed. Fribourg. pp. 1-6. 2014.
[1] K. Fall, A Delay-Tolerant Network Architecture for Challenged Internets, International Conference On Applications, Technologies, Architectures, and Protocols for Computer Communications, 2003, pp. 27–34.
[2] M. Liu, Y. Yang, and Z. Qin, A Survey of Routing Protocols And Simulations In DTNs, in Workshop on Automotive Software Architectures, 2011, pp. 243–253.
[3] S. Gambs, M.-O. Killijian, and M. N. n. del Prado Cortez, Show Me How You Move and I Will Tell You Who You Are, in Proc. of the ACM SPRINGL 2010, 2010, pp. 34–41.
[4] J. Miao, O. Hasan, S. B. Mokhtar, L. Brunie, and K. Yim, An investigation on the Unwillingness of Nodes to Participate In Mobile Delay Tolerant Network Routing, International Journal of Information Management (Elsevier), 2013.
[5] R. Zhuang, S. Zhang, S. A. DeLoach, X. Ou and A. Singhal, Simulation-Based Approaches To Studying Effectiveness of Moving-Target Network Defense, in National Symposium on Moving Target Research, 2012.
[6] Crampton, J. & Morisset, C. PTaCL: A Language for Attribute-Based Access Control in Open Systems in POST, 2012, 390-409
[7] Ramli, C. D. P. K.; Nielson, H. R. & Nielson, F. The Logic of XACML in FACS, 2011, 205-222