Performance Analysis of Software-Defined Networks to Mitigate Private VLAN Attacks.

The defence-in-depth (DiD) methodology is a defensive approach usually performed by network administrators to implement secure networks by layering and segmenting them. Typically, segmentation is implemented in the second layer using the standard virtual local area networks (VLANs) or private virtual local area networks (PVLANs). Although defence in depth is usually manageable in small networks, it is not easily scalable to larger environments. Software-defined networks (SDNs) are emerging technologies that can be very helpful when performing network segmentation in such environments. In this work, a corporate networking scenario using PVLANs is emulated in order to carry out a comparative performance analysis on defensive strategies regarding CPU and memory usage, communications delay, packet loss, and power consumption. To do so, a well-known PVLAN attack is executed using simulated attackers located within the corporate network. Then, two mitigation strategies are analysed and compared using the traditional approach involving access control lists (ACLs) and SDNs. The results show the operation of the two mitigation strategies under different network scenarios and demonstrate the better performance of the SDN approach in oversubscribed network designs.

Secure Authentication and Credential Establishment in Narrowband IoT and 5G.

Security is critical in the deployment and maintenance of novel IoT and 5G networks. The process of bootstrapping is required to establish a secure data exchange between IoT devices and data-driven platforms. It entails, among other steps, authentication, authorization, and credential management. Nevertheless, there are few efforts dedicated to providing service access authentication in the area of constrained IoT devices connected to recent wireless networks such as narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and 5G. Therefore, this paper presents the adaptation of bootstrapping protocols to be compliant with the 3GPP specifications in order to enable the 5G feature of secondary authentication for constrained IoT devices. To allow the secondary authentication and key establishment in NB-IoT and 4G/5G environments, we have adapted two Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) lower layers, i.e., PANATIKI and LO-CoAP-EAP. In fact, this approach presents the evaluation of both aforementioned EAP lower layers, showing the contrast between a current EAP lower layer standard, i.e., PANA, and one specifically designed with the constraints of IoT, thus providing high flexibility and scalability in the bootstrapping process in 5G networks. The proposed solution is evaluated to prove its efficiency and feasibility, being one of the first efforts to support secure service authentication and key establishment for constrained IoT devices in 5G environments.

Enterprise Security for the Internet of Things (IoT): Lightweight Bootstrapping with EAP-NOOB.

The emergence of radio technologies, such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth Mesh, has transformed simple physical devices into smart objects that can understand and react to their environment. Devices, such as light bulbs, door locks, and window blinds, can now be connected to, and remotely controlled from, the Internet. Given the resource-constrained nature of many of these devices, they have typically relied on the use of universal global shared secrets for the initial bootstrapping and commissioning phase. Such a scheme has obvious security weaknesses and it also creates undesirable walled-gardens where devices of one ecosystem do not inter-operate with the other. In this paper, we investigate whether the standard Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) framework can be used for secure bootstrapping of resource-constrained devices. EAP naturally provides the benefits of per-device individual credentials, straightforward revocation, and isolation of devices. In particular, we look at the Nimble out-of-band authentication for EAP (EAP-NOOB) as a candidate EAP authentication method. EAP-NOOB greatly simplifies deployment of such devices as it does not require them to be pre-provisioned with credentials of any sort. Based on our implementation experience on off-the-shelf hardware, we demonstrate that lightweight EAP-NOOB is indeed a way forward to securely bootstrap such devices.

Security Architecture for Defining and Enforcing Security Profiles in DLT/SDN-Based IoT Systems.

Despite the advantages that the Internet of Things (IoT) will bring to our daily life, the increasing interconnectivity, as well as the amount and sensitivity of data, make IoT devices an attractive target for attackers. To address this issue, the recent Manufacturer Usage Description (MUD) standard has been proposed to describe network access control policies in the manufacturing phase to protect the device during its operation by restricting its communications. In this paper, we define an architecture and process to obtain and enforce the MUD restrictions during the bootstrapping of a device. Furthermore, we extend the MUD model with a flexible policy language to express additional aspects, such as data privacy, channel protection, and resource authorization. For the enforcement of such enriched behavioral profiles, we make use of Software Defined Networking (SDN) techniques, as well as an attribute-based access control approach by using authorization credentials and encryption techniques. These techniques are used to protect devices' data, which are shared through a blockchain platform. The resulting approach was implemented and evaluated in a real scenario, and is intended to reduce the attack surface of IoT deployments by restricting devices' communication before they join a certain network.

PLUG-N-HARVEST Architecture for Secure and Intelligent Management of Near-Zero Energy Buildings.

Building Automation (BA) is key to encourage the growth of more sustainable cities and smart homes. However, current BA systems are not able to manage new constructions based on Adaptable/Dynamic Building Envelopes (ADBE) achieving near-zero energy-efficiency. The ADBE buildings integrate Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Envelope Retrofitting (ER) that must be managed by new BA systems based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) through secure protocols. This paper presents the PLUG-N-HARVEST architecture based on cloud AI systems and security-by-design IoT networks to manage near-zero ADBE constructions in both residential and commercial buildings. To demonstrate the PLUG-N-HARVEST architecture, three different real-world pilots have been considered in Germany, Greece and Spain. The paper describes the Spain pilot of residential buildings including the deployment of IoT wireless networks (i.e., sensors and actuators) based on Zwave technology to enable plug-and-play installations. The real-world tests showed the high efficiency of security-by-design Internet communications between building equipment and cloud management systems. Moreover, the results of cloud intelligent management demonstrate the improvements in both energy consumption and comfort conditions.

Enabling Virtual AAA Management in SDN-Based IoT Networks †.

The increase of Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies is bringing many security management benefits that can be exploited at the edge of Internet of Things (IoT) networks to deal with cyber-threats. In this sense, this paper presents and evaluates a novel policy-based and cyber-situational awareness security framework for continuous and dynamic management of Authentication, Authorization, Accounting (AAA) as well as Channel Protection virtual security functions in IoT networks enabled with SDN/NFV. The virtual AAA, including network authenticators, are deployed as VNF (Virtual Network Function) dynamically at the edge, in order to enable scalable device's bootstrapping and managing the access control of IoT devices to the network. In addition, our solution allows distributing dynamically the necessary crypto-keys for IoT Machine to Machine (M2M) communications and deploy virtual Channel-protection proxys as VNFs, with the aim of establishing secure tunnels among IoT devices and services, according to the contextual decisions inferred by the cognitive framework. The solution has been implemented and evaluated, demonstrating its feasibility to manage dynamically AAA and channel protection in SDN/NFV-enabled IoT scenarios.

A CoAP-Based Network Access Authentication Service for Low-Power Wide Area Networks: LO-CoAP-EAP.

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) landscape is expanding with new radio technologies. In addition to the Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Network (LR-WPAN), the recent set of technologies conforming the so-called Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LP-WAN) offers long-range communications, allowing one to send small pieces of information at a reduced energy cost, which promotes the creation of new IoT applications and services. However, LP-WAN technologies pose new challenges since they have strong limitations in the available bandwidth. In general, a first step prior to a smart object being able to gain access to the network is the process of network access authentication. It involves authentication, authorization and key management operations. This process is of vital importance for operators to control network resources. However, proposals for managing network access authentication in LP-WAN are tailored to the specifics of each technology, which could introduce interoperability problems in the future. In this sense, little effort has been put so far into providing a wireless-independent solution for network access authentication in the area of LP-WAN. To fill this gap, we propose a service named Low-Overhead CoAP-EAP (LO-CoAP-EAP), which is based on previous work designed for LR-WPAN. LO-CoAP-EAP integrates the use of Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) infrastructures and the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) protocol. For this integration, we use the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) to design a network authentication service independent of the type of LP-WAN technology. LO-CoAP-EAP represents a trade-off between flexibility, wireless technology independence, scalability and performance in LP-WAN.

Lightweight CoAP-Based Bootstrapping Service for the Internet of Things.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming increasingly important in several fields of industrial applications and personal applications, such as medical e-health, smart cities, etc. The research into protocols and security aspects related to this area is continuously advancing in making these networks more reliable and secure, taking into account these aspects by design. Bootstrapping is a procedure by which a user obtains key material and configuration information, among other parameters, to operate as an authenticated party in a security domain. Until now solutions have focused on re-using security protocols that were not developed for IoT constraints. For this reason, in this work we propose a design and implementation of a lightweight bootstrapping service for IoT networks that leverages one of the application protocols used in IoT : Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). Additionally, in order to provide flexibility, scalability, support for large scale deployment, accountability and identity federation, our design uses technologies such as the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) and Authentication Authorization and Accounting (AAA). We have named this service CoAP-EAP. First, we review the state of the art in the field of bootstrapping and specifically for IoT. Second, we detail the bootstrapping service: the architecture with entities and interfaces and the flow operation. Third, we obtain performance measurements of CoAP-EAP (bootstrapping time, memory footprint, message processing time, message length and energy consumption) and compare them with PANATIKI. The most significant and constrained representative of the bootstrapping solutions related with CoAP-EAP. As we will show, our solution provides significant improvements, mainly due to an important reduction of the message length.

Prototype of a system based on voice assistants for cognitive stimulation of the elderly.

The population of Europe is getting older and factors such as labor mobility and the low birth rate have increased single-person households. In addition, many older people want to stay at home. For this to be possible, it is necessary to promote active aging policies that slow cognitive decline and help maintain good mental health. In this article we describe a system based on voice assistants (VAs) to improve the physical and mental health of the elderly. The solution proposes different activities to the user and gathers information about the status of the user. Voice assistants are an ideal tool to promote the autonomy of the elderly thanks to their low cost, the multiple possibilities they offer to interact with the user and their ease of use. A preliminary study of the system has been conducted with six users aged between 60 and 93 years. The results show a good predisposition to integrate the solution into their daylife. It has also been verified that regardless of age, all the participants were able to interact with the system and complete the proposed activities.