Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore - November 2016

Introduction by Yen-Kuang Chen, An-Yeu (Andy) Wu, Magdy A. Bayoumi, and Farinaz Koushanfar

While the IoT will provide us with enormous benefits in the next five to ten years, there are some security and privacy challenges. Data security and privacy is always a major concern, and is even more important in IoT, which touches many aspects of human life. Some low-cost devices have a limited budget to implement strong security or cryptography features. These lightweight devices can become the weakest links in the system. Conventional firewalls that provide network security by blocking malicious traffic can no longer work in IoT because of its decentralized nature. If the lightweight devices are not properly secured, the data they produce cannot be fully trusted. Attackers may provide false information that alters the behaviors of the system. Designing low-cost and scalable crypto algorithms and hardware accelerators is crucial. A system-level security analytics and self-adaptive security policy framework are also needed. This month we would like to introduce three papers on IoT data security and privacy.

First, future vehicles will be fully connected using sensors and communication capabilities. This will be a significant realization of IoT. “Challenges and Opportunities for Securing Intelligent Transportation System” examines the risks faced by the current intelligent transportation system architecture and public key infrastructure for vehicle communication. The analysis calls for future research directions in order to achieve the full potential for a future intelligent transportation system.

Second, conventional wisdom believes symmetric-key cryptography is less expensive than public-key cryptography. However, public-key cryptography actually has a lower total cost of ownership because of cost savings in provision, deployment, and management. Furthermore, public-key cryptography can be more energy efficient because public-key-based security protocols usually use less communication than their symmetric-key-based counterparts. “Securing M2M With Post-Quantum Public-Key Cryptography” demonstrates the feasibility of using hardware-based public-key cryptography to provide data security in IoT applications.

Third, sensors may fail due to many reasons. In a body sensor network, it is even more challenging because of energy constraints. “Fault-Tolerant and Low-Power Sampling Schedules for Localized BASNs” presents a comprehensive study from application requirements to system designs.

 

IEEE Xplore References

  1. M. Zhao, J. Walker and C. C. Wang, "Challenges and Opportunities for Securing Intelligent Transportation System," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 96-105, March 2013.
  2. J. R. Shih et al., "Securing M2M With Post-Quantum Public-Key Cryptography," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 106-116, March 2013.
  3. V. Goudar and M. Potkonjak, "Fault-Tolerant and Low-Power Sampling Schedules for Localized BASNs," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 86-95, March 2013.

 

Errata: In the September issue it was stated that the Introduction was done by Jianqing Zhang, UMware Inc., when it should have said, Introduction by Jianqing Zhang, VMware Inc. We have since corrected this issue.

 

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