Abhijan Bhattacharyya

Lightweight security scheme for vehicle tracking system using CoAP

In this paper we present a lightweight security scheme for authentication and key management to establish a secure channel for Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) for an IoT (Internet of Things) application. We choose Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) as lightweight application layer protocol. Low overhead security is still an open challenge for CoAP. We propose a payload embedded low cost symmetric-key based robust authentication and key management mechanism on CoAP. This minimizes the security overhead by eliminating expensive handshaking and ciphersuite agreement of standard TLS and DTLS. We propose some unique modification in the CoAP header to invoke its secure mode in an optimized manner. Further, we propose a secure channel with adaptive reliability which reduces the overall communication cost. Such a low overhead security scheme for CoAP is hitherto unexplored. The efficacy of our proposed scheme is demonstrated through laboratory experiments in an emulated environment.

Auth-Lite: Lightweight M2MAuthentication reinforcing DTLS for CoAP

The resource constrained characteristic of M2M systems has made secure channel establishment for sensor data communication a challenging task. While the proposed Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) from Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) enables lightweight application layer for sensor devices and gateways, lightweight security protocol on DTLS-secured CoAP (CoAPs) is still not optimally achieved. CoAPs proposes different modes of security starting from pre-shared key to certificate mode. This paper investigates the performance of the payload embedded novel authentication and key management mechanism proposed by the authors, which is robust in nature, compared to pre-shared key mode CoAPs, as well as lightweight. The proposed scheme can be integrated in future with pre-shared key mode of DTLS to reinforce DTLS for mutual authentication. We prove efficacy of our proposed scheme based on comparative analysis with pre-shared key mode of CoAPs.

Lightweight security scheme for IoT applications using CoAP

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study lightweight security scheme for Internet of Things (IoT) applications using Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). Resource-constrained characteristics of IoT systems have ushered in compelling requirements for lightweight application protocol and security suites. CoAP has already been established as the candidate protocol for IoT systems. However, low overhead security scheme for CoAP is still an open problem. Existing security solutions like Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) is not suitable, particularly due to its expensive handshaking, public key infrastructure (PKI)-based authentication and lengthy ciphersuite agreement process. Design/methodology/approach – This paper proposes a lightweight security scheme in CoAP using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128 symmetric key algorithm. The paper presents an object security (payload embedded)-based robust authentication mechanism with integrated key management. The paper introduces few unique modifications to CoAP header to optimize security operation and minimize communication cost. Findings – It is resilient to number of security attacks like replay attack, meet-in-the-middle attack and secure under chosen plaintext attack. This scheme is generic in nature, applicable for gamut of IoT applications. The paper proves efficacy of our proposed scheme for vehicle tracking application in emulated laboratory setup. Specifically, it compares with DTLS-enabled CoAP to establish the lightweight feature of our proposed solution. Research limitations/implications – This paper mainly focuses on implementing in-vehicle tracking systems as an IoT application and used CoAP as the application protocol. Practical implications – Such a lightweight security scheme would provide immense benefit in IoT systems so that resource constraint-sensing devices and nodes can be made secure. This would impact IoT eco systems to a large extent. Originality/value – Such kind of security suite that provides both robustness and lightweight feature is hitherto not known to the authors, particularly in CoAP for IoT applications.

Why not keep your personal data secure yet private in IoT?: Our lightweight approach

IoT (Internet of Things) systems are resource-constrained and primarily depend on sensors for contextual, physiological and behavioral information. Sensitive nature of sensor data incurs high probability of privacy breaching risk due to intended or malicious disclosure. Uncertainty about privacy cost while sharing sensitive sensor data through Internet would mostly result in overprovisioning of security mechanisms and it is detrimental for IoT scalability. In this paper, we propose a novel method of optimizing the need for IoT security enablement, which is based on the estimated privacy risk of shareable sensor data. Particularly, our scheme serves two objectives, viz. privacy risk assessment and optimizing the secure transmission based on that assessment. The challenges are, firstly, to determine the degree of privacy, and evaluate a privacy score from the fine-grained sensor data and, secondly, to preserve the privacy content through secure transfer of the data, adapted based on the measured privacy score. We further meet this objective by introducing and adapting a lightweight scheme for secure channel establishment between the sensing device and the data collection unit/ backend application embedded within CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol), a candidate IoT application protocol and using UDP as a transport. We consider smart energy management, a killer IoT application, as the use-case where smart energy meter data contains private information about the residents. Our results with real household smart meter data demonstrate the efficacy of our scheme.

LESS: Lightweight Establishment of Secure Session: A Cross-Layer Approach Using CoAP and DTLS-PSK Channel Encryption

Secure yet lightweight protocol for communication over the Internet is a pertinent problem for constrained environments in the context of Internet of Things (IoT) / Machine to Machine (M2M) applications. This paper extends the initial approaches published in [1], [2] and presents a novel cross-layer lightweight implementation to establish a secure channel. It distributes the responsibility of communication over secure channel in between the application and transport layers. Secure session establishment is performed using a payload embedded challenge response scheme over the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [3]. Record encryption mechanism of Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) [4] with Pre-Shared Key (PSK) [5] is used for encrypted exchange of application layer data. The secure session credentials derived from the application layer is used for encrypted exchange over the transport layer. The solution is designed in such a way that it can easily be integrated with an existing system deploying CoAP over DTLS-PSK. The proposed method is robust under different security attacks like replay attack, DoS and chosen cipher text. The improved performance of the proposed solution is established with comparative results and analysis.

Adapting protocol characteristics of CoAP using sensed indication for vehicular analytics

In this paper we present a unique approach to make use of CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) [1] from IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) in a situation aware mode. The protocol adapts its characteristic for resource optimization depending on the indication inferred from sensed data. We consider a use-case for vehicular telemetry using a constrained in-vehicle sensor gateway which posts the vehicular information (accelerometer, GPS, device-identifier, time). In this use-case bandwidth usage is the main concern for the sensor gateway whereas usage of power which is directly impacted by overall bandwidth consumption is a key factor in case of mobile phone used as sensor gateway. We have reduced communication cost and optimized resource usage in terms of energy and bandwidth which are essential for any constrained sensor gateway by adapting characteristics of CoAP as mentioned above. The improvements are established by analyzing the data captured in real field.

Signal Characteristics on Sensor Data Compression in IoT -An Investigation

In Internet of Things (IoT), numerous and diverse types of sensors generate a plethora of data that needs to be stored and processed with minimum loss of information. This demands efficient compression mechanisms where loss of information is minimized. Hence data generated by diverse sensors with different signal features require optimum balance between compression gain and information loss. This paper presents a unique analysis of contemporary lossy compression algorithms applied on real field sensor data with different sensor dynamics. The aim of the work is to classify the compression algorithms based on the signal characteristics of sensor data and to map them to different sensor data types to ensure efficient compression. The present work is the stepping stone for a future recommender system to choose the preferred compression techniques for the given type of sensor data.

ITS-Light: Adaptive Lightweight Scheme to Resource Optimize Intelligent Transportation Tracking System (ITS) – Customizing CoAP for Opportunistic Optimization

In this paper we aim to reduce overall resource usage and improve throughput of an intelligent transportation tracking application. Primary improvements in terms of bandwidth and latency are achieved using CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol). We propose a novel approach to adapt CoAP’s reliability mode for data transfer by inferring vehicle’s motion-state from tracking information. Further, we make salient modifications in protocol to achieve even better optimization and improved throughput and scalability while using non-reliable data transfer mode of CoAP. Proposed scheme is analyzed based on results obtained both in real and emulated environments.

Generic Middleware Architecture Supporting Heterogeneous Sensors Management for Any Smart System

The ever increasing demand to develop smart environments starting from small scale environment like smart home to more complex one like smart city, extensively require complex middleware to support interoperation among various diverse domains of applications and different heterogeneous sensors. The middleware is also responsible for providing abstractions to the application interfaces and device sensing. In this paper generic middleware architecture which supports modularity, sensor observations, and diverse sensor management and provides abstraction to sensors and applications is presented. Implementation of the proposed middleware architecture is described by smart irrigation and firming environment use case. The architecture presented here is solely based on object oriented concept and this can be further extended for any smart system. A future research scope of the proposed architecture is also discussed here.

Semantic data exchange between collaborative robots in fog environment: Can CoAP be a choice?

The transition of Internet from human-centric exchanges to the Internet of Things has posed several interesting challenges regarding the communication model and data exchange pattern. The emergence of edge/fog computing as a compute model has further highlighted the need of a uniform model to cater to the inherent heterogeneity of participating devices. In several domains, the devices may range from standard compute and communication devices to gateways/switches, as well as robots/drones and other types of autonomous entities. In scenarios like disaster management, warehouse automation, surveillance etc. use of robots/drones/AGVs/UAVs is steadily increasing in order to minimise potentially hazardous human intervention. Optimality of data exchange and further processing is a desired feature in such scenarios, especially in outdoor disaster situations where availability of the back-end cloud infrastructure can not be guaranteed. In this paper, we demonstrate a real life robotic data exchange model based on Resource Description Framework (RDF). We further perform a comparative analysis of network performance between TCP in Robot Operating System (ROS) and block-wise extension to Constrained Application Layer Protocol (CoAP) for bidirectional exchange of such RDF data in a disaster situation where robotic entities accomplish search and rescue missions in collaboration with fog devices. The causal analysis presented in this paper puts a stepping stone for potential future enhancement of CoAP.