Asma Adnane

Internet-of-Things-Based Smart Cities: Recent Advances and Challenges

The Internet of Things is a novel cutting edge technology that proffers to connect a plethora of digital devices endowed with several sensing, actuation, and computing capabilities with the Internet, thus offering manifold new services in the context of a smart city. The appealing IoT services and big data analytics are enabling smart city initiatives all over the world. These services are transforming cities by improving infrastructure and transportation systems, reducing traffic congestion, providing waste management, and improving the quality of human life. In this article, we devise a taxonomy to best bring forth a generic overview of the IoT paradigm for smart cities, integrated ICT, network types, possible opportunities and major requirements. Moreover, an overview of the up-to-date efforts from standard bodies is presented. Later, we give an overview of existing open source IoT platforms for realizing smart city applications followed by several exemplary case studies. In addition, we summarize the latest synergies and initiatives worldwide taken to promote IoT in the context of smart cities. Finally, we highlight several challenges in order to give future research directions.

Evaluation criterias for trust management in vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs)

Vehicular Ad-hoc networks (VANETs) have been around for some time and are still attracting research. VANETs are one of the ad hoc networks real-life applications, where vehicles communicate which each other and with fixed components known as roadside units. VANETs have unique characteristics and requirements which differ from those in standard ad-hoc networks, but the security remains a major challenge because of the very dynamic topology and the lack of infrastructure. In this autonomous and auto-organized environment, the question of whom to trust and for what becomes very important and difficult to answer. This paper addresses the issues associated with establishing trust between peers in VANET. It defines, discusses and evaluates various trust management approaches and how well they address VANET requirements. The paper also proposes criteria for assessing the effectiveness of trust management models with regards to challenges specific to VANETs.

Vehicular cloud networks: architecture, applications and security issues

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) are the largest real life application of ad-hoc networks where nodes are represented via fast moving vehicles. This paper introduces the future emerging technology, i.e., Vehicular Cloud Networking (VCN) where vehicles and adjacent infrastructure merge with traditional internet clouds to offer different applications ranging from low sized applications to very complex applications. VCN is composed of three types of clouds: Vehicular cloud, Infrastructure cloud and traditional Back-End (IT) cloud. We introduced these clouds via a three tier architecture along with their operations and characteristics. We have proposed use cases of each cloud tier that explain how it is practically created and utilised while taking the vehicular mobility in consideration. Moreover, it is critical to ensure security, privacy and trust of VCN network and its assets. Therefore, to describe the security of VCN, we have provided an in-depth analysis of different threats related to each tier of VCN. The threats related to vehicular cloud and infrastructure cloud are categorized according to their assets, i.e., vehicles, adjacent infrastructure, wireless communication, vehicular messages, and vehicular cloud threats. Similarly, the Back-End cloud threats are categorized into data and network threats. The possible implications of these threats and their effects on various components of VCN are also explained in detail.

A Novel Context-Based Risk Assessment Approach in Vehicular Networks

Vehicular Networks (VANET) are the largest real life application of ad-hoc networks where nodes are represented via fast moving vehicles. As VANET is characterised with several unique features such as the high mobility, random distribution and short connection times, etc. establishing security becomes very challenging, and identifying security threats and possible attacks become very critical. Thus, identifying, managing and exploiting risk across the different components of VANET have become increasingly important to ensure the success and the robustness of the VANET components and its applications. As VANET include different contexts, the risk posed by particular attack may have different impact, i.e., the risk caused by an attack in rural and urban area may have different consequences on the network. To this end, we propose a novel context-based risk assessment methodology to identify attacks in different contexts of VANET. The main aim of the paper is twofold: 1) First, we identified vulnerabilities, threats and attacks on important assets in VANET, and (2) secondly, we proposed a novel context-based risk assessment approach in VANET to identify the risks encountered by attacks in VANET in various contexts.

Vehicular Cloud Networks: Architecture and Security

Cloud computing has been widely adopted across the IT industry due to its scalable, cost-effective, and efficient services. It has many applications in areas such as healthcare, mobile cloud computing (MCC), and vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). Vehicular cloud networks (VCN) is another application of cloud computing which is a combination of cloud and VANET technologies. It is composed of three clouds named vehicular cloud, infrastructure cloud, and traditional IT cloud. In this chapter, the three clouds involved in VCN are presented using a three-tier architecture, and the security issues related to each tier are described in detail. After describing the detailed architecture of VANET, their components, and their important characteristics, this chapter presents the architecture of VCN. It is followed by the detailed analysis of the threats to which each tier-cloud of VCN is vulnerable.

Privacy and Trust in Smart Camera Sensor Networks

The emerging technologies of Smart Camera Sensor Networks (SCSN) are being driven by the social need for security assurance and analytical information. SCSN are deployed for protection and for surveillance tracking of potential criminals. A smart camera sensor does not just capture visual and audio information but covers the whole electromagnetic spectrum. It constitutes of intelligent onboard processor, autonomous communication interfaces, memory and has the ability to execute algorithms. The rapid deployment of smart camera sensors with ubiquitous imaging access causes security and privacy issues for the captured data and its metadata, as well as the need for trust and cooperation between the smart camera sensors. The intelligence growth in this technology requires adequate information security with capable privacy and trust protocols to prevent malicious content attacks. This paper presents, first, a clear definition of SCSN. It addresses current methodologies with perspectives in privacy and trust protection, and proposes a multi-layer security approach. The proposed approach highlights the need for a public key infrastructure layer in association with a Reputation-Based Cooperation mechanism.