Secure Communication Framework Research Articles

Multi-phase Quantum resistant Framework for Secure Communication in SCADA Systems

Multi-phase Quantum resistant Framework for Secure Communication in SCADA Systems

Design and Implementation of Microservice Secure Communication Framework based on National Secret Algorithm and Dynamic Key

With the acceleration of the pace of the national electricity reform and the wide application of the micro-service architecture, various network threats in the field of information security are increasing, and the power industry has become the “hardest hit area” for cyber attacks. In order to improve the safe implementation of the National Power Grid’s electronic projects and effectively resist the “malicious exploration” of various network threats, this paper proposes a microservice secure communication framework based on the combination of dynamic keys and national secret algorithms for a high concurrency web system based on microservices. The framework uses the national secret SM2 algorithm to generate session-level paired keys and then generates a digital signature through the SM3 algorithm, which effectively guarantees the integrity of the communication. Finally, it extracts the encryption key and encryption offset from the paired keys and uses the SM4 algorithm to encrypt the original request text payload. Timestamps and random numbers are added to each request to prevent tampering and replay attacks effectively. The system framework has been practically applied on the State Grid’s digital capability open platform, which ensures the security of micro-service communication and the safety and efficient transmission of data.

A Reliable Framework for Secure Communication and Health Assessment of Soldiers in the Battlefield

Wars against the enemy are mandatory for the integrity of a nation. With the passage of time, the nature of war is being changed, to some extent from a conventional war to the network-centric warfare. The rate of soldiers death has increased in modern combat operations. The lack of secure connectivity and the health (mental and physical) of soldiers are among a few major reasons for the increased mortality. Mental health or stress level produces permanent changes in the physiological systems of a soldier and long-term diseases such as asthma, diabetes, and hypertension are activated with chronic stress. Although modern communication technologies may provide huge support in the efficient conduction of combat’s activities but it is at the cost of huge power consumption. The proposed research presents a computationally efficient and low-power framework that not only ensures secure communication but also provides a robust command and control system to monitor the mental stress, injury, and death of soldiers. In the suggested framework, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is used for communication that is highly suitable for power constraint devices. A wearable sensor system is suggested that can be embedded in a soldier’s uniform to assist in the recording of real-time stress, injury, and death of soldiers. The system contains a heart-rate monitor to record variations in heartbeats, an EDA sensor for skin conductance, and a respiration sensor for respiration variations along with a holster unit for storage and transmission of biomedical signals. Furthermore, it also provides a mechanism to prevent misuse of soldiers’ communication equipment by the enemy thus ensuring more security. The experimental analysis shows that the proposed mental stress computation module achieved 83.33% accuracy. Moreover, a score-based comparison is performed with the existing techniques and it is found that the proposed mechanism outperformed its counterparts with 37.5% improvements in the features-based analysis. The flexibility, security, efficiency, and reliability of the framework make it appropriate for modern warfare scenarios.

Fortifying Smart Transportation Security Through Public Blockchain

Smart vehicles-enabled intelligent transportation system (ITS) supports a wide range of applications, such as, but not limited to, traffic planning and management, collision avoidance alert system, automated road speed enforcement, electronic toll collection, and real-time parking management, to name a few. However, it suffers from various types of security and privacy issues due to insecure communication among the entities over public channels. Therefore, an efficient and lightweight security mechanism is essential to protect the data that is both at rest as well as in transit. To this direction, we propose a public blockchain-envisioned secure communication framework for ITS (PBSCF-ITS). The proposed PBSCF-ITS guarantees access control and key management among the vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to roadside unit, and roadside unit to cloud server. We analyze the security of PBSCF-ITS to prove its resilience against various types of possible attacks. Furthermore, the performance of PBSCF-ITS with other related competing schemes has been compared. The obtained results illustrate that PBSCF-ITS outperforms the existing ones. Additionally, the pragmatic study of PBSCF-ITS is conducted to check its influence on various network-related performance parameters, like the number of mined blocks and transactions per block.

Design and Basic Evaluation of Virtual IPv4-based CYPHONIC adapter

The rapid spread of cloud services and the Internet of Things (IoT) leads to a request for secure communication between devices, called zero-trust security. However, security tends to be a low priority compared to the designated service because zero-trust security requires security knowledge. Therefore, a secure communication framework for developers’ service development process is essential as the security measures. The authors have developed CYber PHysical Overlay Network over Internet Communication (CYPHONIC) for secure end-to-end communication between devices. Since the CYPHONIC provides secure communication, it also performs as the secure communication framework. The current implementation requires installing the device program into the end devices to join our overlay network. However, it should support general devices such as embedded devices or dedicated service servers even if they refuse to install the additional program. This paper proposes a new technology to support these general devices without installing the device program into the devices. We developed a CYPHONIC adapter to provide secure communication to general devices. It shows that general devices can communicate over the overlay network through the proposed CYPHONIC adapter.

CoFA for QoS based secure communication using adaptive chaos dynamical system in fog-integrated cloud

Fog computing addresses the issues experienced in Cloud computing such as latency, delay, and bandwidth while provisioning the resources such as computation, storage, and network for IoT applications. Fog resources and their integration with Cloud poses other significant problems such as data security, overhead in data acquisition, data tampering, data privacy, data breach, etc. Designing a secure, resilient, and scalable infrastructure for IoT network is challenging because of resource heterogeneity, resource-constrained devices, and unreliable network connectivity. The researchers have developed many chaos-based encryption algorithms to enhance the security level and make it difficult for intruders to access the data. However, such traditional algorithms increase the communication overhead and computational cost. This necessitates the design of new secure communication protocols that comply with various security requirements of Class of Fog Applications (CoFA). This work proposes an efficient and intelligent method that classifies the applications arriving at the system into CoFA and maps them to five levels of chaos-based security protocols for secure communication. An adaptive sliding mode security schemes are developed using Genesio-Tesi, Modified-Jerk, Chua's chaotic, and Financial systems in CoFA framework for secure communication. A comparison-based performance study, with state-of-art, reveals the efficacy of the proposed method, which performs better for security optimization and synchronization with the least error.

Secure and pervasive communication framework using Named Data Networking for connected healthcare

Connected healthcare system is one of the most critical Internet of Things (IoT) applications offering numerous healthcare services. But it requires the next-generation technologies to collude with the IoT standards to provide prompt end-user services. Thus, a data-centric network architecture like, Named Data Network (NDN) can be effective to tackle the concerns related to communication in the connected healthcare. In this article, we propose a Secure and Pervasive Health Care Framework (SecPHCF) that attempts to process healthcare data securely and transmit it using NDN thereby aiding faster healthcare support. The data dissemination model in SecPHCF contains two operating modes, (a) a consumer-based model where the end-user initiates the data communication process and (b) a producer-based model where alert messages indicating critical conditions trigger the transmission. SecPHCF is validated through extensive simulations on different network scenarios by considering evaluation parameters such as throughput, network delay, packet delivery ratio, and computation overheads.

Securing Internet of Drones Networks Using AI-Envisioned Smart-Contract-Based Blockchain

Drones, sometimes called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), can be deployed in a flying Internet of Things (IoT)/Internet of Drones (IoD) environment to execute some specific tasks, like environmental monitoring, disaster management, aerial photography, monitoring and tracking of enemies at borders, and many more. For security reasons, the deployed drones can sense and collect the data from their surroundings, and then securely send the information to the ground station server. The ground station server then provides the collected data to the peer-to-peer cloud server (P2PCS) network after converting them into encrypted transactions in a secure way. Finally, the blocks are created from the encrypted transactions and added into a blockchain by applying consensus algorithms implemented by the P2PCS network. The deployed artificial intelligence (AI)-based big data analytics is required to predict the useful results from the collected and processed data. In this article, we propose a novel AI-envisioned smart-contract-based blockchain-enabled security framework for secure communication in IoD. The provided security analysis proves the security of the proposed framework against different potential attacks. The blockchain implementation of the proposed framework is then executed to identify its impact on the performance of the system.

A novel ICMetric public key framework for secure communication

The Integrated Circuit Metric (ICMetric) technology is a novel trust basis that uses the system features to create an identification of a device. The ICMetric of the device is used for the provision of security services, thereby addressing the issue of trust associated with device identity. The ICMetric technology can be adapted to function with varying environments; however, the short length and low entropy of the ICMetric key pose a major threat to applications based on ICMetric. This paper proposes a secure comprehensive ICMetric based architecture that facilitates asymmetric ICMetric applications for secure services in an end-to-end environment. This novel framework has been designed keeping in mind the construction principles of ICMetric thereby preventing threats that are prevalent in many security schemes. Finally, an empirical evaluation and feasibility has been presented by implementing the proposed framework and doing an extensive security analysis.

Deep Learning Framework for Secure Communication With an Energy Harvesting Receiver

In this paper, we consider wireless-powered secure communication with an energy harvesting receiver, which is allowed to harvest energy from the transmitted signals but not to decode information, and there is thus a requirement to keep the information secret from this potential eavesdropper. Considering co-channel interference among signal links, we find the optimal transmit power to maximize the sum rate of the signal links, while ensuring the requirements of information secrecy and energy harvesting. Due to the non-convexity of the optimization problem formulated here, we first derive suboptimal solutions using an iterative algorithm based on a dual method. In order to address the limitations caused by the use of the iterative algorithm, i.e., long computation time and suboptimality, we design an efficient deep neural network (DNN) framework and a novel training strategy as a means of combining supervised and unsupervised training. Specifically, the DNN is first pre-trained using labeled training data with the suboptimal solutions obtained from the iterative algorithm in a supervised manner; further training is then applied to the DNN using a well designed loss function in an unsupervised manner to enhance the training performance. Simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme achieves a near-optimal performance with a lower computation time than existing schemes. We also verify that the pre-training and the new loss function are effective in improving the speed of training of the DNN.

Secure Communication Framework for Blockchain-Based Internet of Drones-Enabled Aerial Computing Deployment

Internet of Drones (IoD)-enabled aerial computing can effectively reduce communication delay and energy consumption as compared to conventional computing environments. It seems very useful for its deployment in disaster areas, emergency relief and battlefield communications. However, different types of attacks, such as replay, man-in-the-middle, impersonation, credential leakage, and other types of data modifications, are possible in an IoD-based communication environment. Therefore, we need a highly robust security protocol to prevent the occurrence of these types of attacks in IoD-enabled aerial computing environments. Moreover, blockchain, a tamper-proof technology, adds more security in the designed security protocol. To cope with these issues, we propose a “blockchain-based secure communication framework for Internet of Drones enabled aerial computing deployment (BCF-IoDAC)”. We also provide a security analysis of the proposed BCF-IoDAC which proves its resilience against various types of passive and active attacks. The security and performance comparison of the proposed BCF-IoDAC is conducted with the closely related existing schemes, and its performance is also better than the compared schemes, as BCF-IoDAC provides more security and functionality features with low computation and communication costs. In addition, the blockchain-based practical demonstration of the proposed BCF-IoDAC is provided to measure its impact on the computational time on a varied number of transactions per block and a varied number of blocks mined in the blockchain.

Big data analytics in Industry 4.0 ecosystems

Big data analytics in Industry 4.0 ecosystems

Data Security Through Zero-Knowledge Proof and Statistical Fingerprinting in Vehicle-to-Healthcare Everything (V2HX) Communications

The security and privacy of healthcare enterprises (HEs) are crucial because they maintain sensitive information. Because of the unique functional requirement of omni-inclusiveness, HEs are expected to monitor patients, allowing for connectivity with vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). In the absence of literature on security provisioning frameworks that connect VANETs and HEs, this paper presents a smart zero-knowledge proof and statistical fingerprinting-based trusted secure communication framework for a fog computing environment. A zero-knowledge proof is used for vehicle authentication, and statistical fingerprinting is employed to secure communication between VANETs and HEs. Authenticity verification of the operations is performed at the on-board unit (OBU) fitted in the vehicle based on the service executions at the resident hardware platform. The processor clock cycles are acquired from the service executions in a complete sandboxed environment. The calculated cycles assist in developing the blueprint signature for the particular OBU of the vehicle. Hence, the fingerprint signature helps build trust and plays a key role in authenticating the vehicle's horizontal movement to everything or to different sections of the HEs. In an environment enabled for fog computing, our novel model can provide efficient remote monitoring.

A blockchain based secure communication framework for community interaction

The globalization of the modern world has highly affected the network communication. For the communication mostly closed and centralized systems are used which sometimes causes privacy problems. The associated systems cannot meet the integrity and transparency aspects of the information security. One such framework is “community research applications”. The existing communication frameworks for community interactions are based on the trust of intermediary institutions, for example, a central authority server. It is considered to be at the risk of single-point failure attack. It can be worse as there may be some internal temperament without the knowledge of the concerned authorities. Therefore, designing of a blockchain based framework for the community interaction is highly recommended. In this paper, we propose a blockchain based secure communication framework for community interaction. In the proposed framework, we used the mechanism of blockchain and implemented it with a tamper-proof distributed ledger. We also implemented an additional layer of security using the RAFT algorithm in which a key management systems is deployed to handle the keys securely. On the basis of proposed framework an android application (app) has been developed to check its usability in the real-time environment. The provided security analysis proved the security of the proposed framework against the various types of possible attacks. We compared the performance of the proposed framework with respect to other similar approaches and found that the performance of the proposed framework is better than others.

BioSec: A Biometric Authentication Framework for Secure and Private Communication Among Edge Devices in IoT and Industry 4.0

To address the privacy and security related challenges in Internet of Things (IoT) environment, we proposed a biometric method called BioSec to provide authentication in IoT integrated with edge consumer electronics with fingerprint authentication. Further, we ensured the security of biometric data both in the transmission channel and database with the standard encryption method. In this way, BioSec ensures secure and private communication among edge devices in IoT and Industry 4.0. Finally, we have compared three encryption methods used to protect biometric templates in terms of processing times and identified that AES-128-bit key encryption method outperforms others.

Private routing and ride‐sharing using homomorphic encryption

A framework for private and secure communication and interaction between agents interacting in transportation services is developed. An agent, i.e. a user, can ask questions or submit queries regarding whether the other agents, i.e. drivers, use the desired road at specific times of the day in an encrypted fashion. The authors developed the framework using semi-homomorphic encryption (namely, the Paillier's encryption method) to enable the algebraic manipulation of plain data without the need for decryption using appropriate computations over the encrypted data. Strong privacy and security guarantees are proved for the agents. Subsequently, the semi-homomorphic encryption method is utilised to develop privacy-aware ride-sharing and routing algorithms without the need for disclosing the origin and destination of the user.

A novel communication framework between MANET and WSN in IoT based smart environment

Internet of Things (IoT) has become an emerging platform for connecting real-world objects for desired service provisioning via the Internet. The real-world devices or objects in IoT enable a smart environment with the help of Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). However, the integration of MANET and WSN in the IoT environment requires a flexible and unified framework for efficient and secure communication between intelligent objects or devices. The state-of-art works in this direction lack standard communication framework for effective implementation of MANET with WSN. In this paper, an efficient and secure communication framework for interconnecting MANET and WSN devices is presented. The proposed communication framework comprises different phases such as collecting data using sensors, sending the data to data processing centers via the mobile access points and finally forwarding the data to data centers for analysis, decision making and reporting purposes. The proposed integration solution is discussed in detail and is evaluated with a case study on data harvesting in rural areas. The efficacy of the proposed framework is reported which will significantly drive the integration of MANET and WSN in future internet using smart objects.

Optimization of System Framework for Secure Communication and Data Virtualization on Cloud Computing.

The consequent deployment of vital infrastructure to provide the secure communication and virtualization not only rectifies the challenges and difficulties but also benefits with saving the process of digitization. With a bang in evolution of cloud computing the uniqueness of every organization affects the virtualization of its information communication technology and applications. The answer for such organizations is to stipulate the precise cloud computing model equivalent to the deliberated and operational goals. This research article emphasized at budding and optimizing a framework for virtual infrastructure and cloud computing model to support the organization stakeholders. Moreover it also improves the cloud security with a protected virtual infrastructure and communication model with better performance. On account of data storage security necessities and distinctiveness of cloud computing environment, a method for secured data & storage based on dynamic allocation and access control mechanism is presented. Dynamic resource allocation is applied for resource utilization that focused on data virtualization and memory virtualization, for protection and access control a modified KPABE algorithm is integrated. The combination of these methods resulting on the optimize resource use, centralizing of storage. The implementation and comparison of results revealed that the proposed modified KP-ABE has performed effectively than the other security standards and especially for resource utilization. The proposed method serves for efficient data storage, access control solutions and computation in cloud environment.

TSA-NoC: Learning-Based Threat Detection and Mitigation for Secure Network-on-Chip Architecture

Networks-on-chip (NoCs) are playing a critical role in modern multicore architecture, and NoC security has become a major concern. Maliciously implanted hardware Trojans (HTs) inject faults into on-chip communications that saturate the network, resulting in the leakage of sensitive data via side channels and significant performance degradation. While existing techniques protect NoCs by detecting and isolating HT-infected components, they inevitably incur occasional inaccurate detection with considerable network latency and power overheads. We propose TSA-NoC, a learning-based design framework for secure and efficient on-chip communication. The proposed TSA-NoC uses an artificial neural network for runtime HT-detection with higher accuracy. Furthermore, we propose a deep-reinforcement-learning-based adaptive routing design for HT mitigation with the aim of minimizing network latency and maximizing energy efficiency. Simulation results show that TSA-NoC achieves up to 97% HT-detection accuracy, 70% improved energy efficiency, and 29% reduced network latency as compared to state-of-the-art HT-mitigation techniques.

An Attack Resilient Framework in Cognitive Radio Network Environment for Inter-domain and Intra-domain Communication

In this manuscript, we have considered the number of security concerns at different aspects of network communication in hybrid (centralized or distributed) cognitive radio network cell environment by distributing it into inter-domain and intra-domain. We have identified and resolved the routing and handoff process threats in both the domains by proposing a secure communication framework. The intra-domain security threats include routing and handoff CU attacks that are firmed by a Trust Analyzer which computes the TV/TF of each transmitting node or CU. Further, the inter-domain security mechanism efficiently recognized the malicious behavior of the handoff CU during real time communication by proposing a ticket based mechanism. For this, an authentication server is liable for generating and distributing the tickets to all the handoff users by verifying their authenticity. The proposed framework is validated against conventional security mechanism over certain networking parameters such as network throughput, packet delivery ratio, packet loss ratio, falsification attack, average authentication, maximum authentication and probabilistic scenarios of authentication mechanism for both the domains.