Security and Privacy Mechanisms for Sensor Middleware and Application in Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing Internet infrastructure. The IoT concerns the connection of physical devices (cars, thermostats, smartphones, home lighting, tide sensors, smart meters, etc.) to the Internet. There are more devices connected to the Internet than people on the planet, and the prediction is that there will be 50 billion IoT devices by 2020. The IoT brings with it many security challenges, and this issue will explore these challenges and look at some emerging solutions. Of course these challenges fall into existing security and identity challenges but are exacerbated and modified by the specific aspects of the IoT.

In this special issue, we introduce researchers and expertise to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will cover identity, confidentiality, denial of service, privacy, and other aspects and specifically how those are different in the IoT space. This special issue is aimed at professionals who understand identity and security issues and wish to understand how those concepts apply in the IoT space. It will also be relevant to IoT specialists looking to understand security issues. Many researchers study and propose new protocols and research results for efficient and reliable SPMs (Security and Privacy Mechanisms). During the working period, we received many submissions from at least 7 different countries where the corresponding authors were majorly counted by the deadline for manuscript submission. Twelve research articles are selected in this issue. We hope many researchers in academia and industries are getting interested in this area by focusing on this issue.

The paper “Secure Data Distribution Scheme with Two-Hop Survival Strategy for Unattended WSNs” proposes a novel data distribution scheme based on erasure codes which adapt the MOVE-ONCE survival strategies. Two-hop neighbor set has been utilized as data shareholders in the proposed data distribution scheme. Since two-hop neighbor set is the better candidate shareholder than one-hop neighbor set for security of data distribution, our proposed scheme could further improve both the probabilistic Backward Secrecy (BSe) and the reliability of data acquisition. Numeric simulations show that the proposed approach outperforms several previous approaches developed for UWSNs.

The paper “Sensor Fusion for Accurate Ego-Motion Estimation in a Moving Platform” proposes a method to address problems that occur when ego-motion estimation is made with a vision sensor and a fast-moving platform. The proposed method generates virtual data using the results of the relatively accurate vehicle sensor at high velocity when the vision sensor is relatively inaccurate. It is possible to obtain more robust and accurate results using these data and giving them a higher weighting value. The proposed method was the result of using an automobile platform.

The paper “Safety and Privacy Considerations for Mobile Application Design in Digital Healthcare” presents a case study on security and privacy implications on the design of a mobile application in digital health, the DeStress Assistant (DeSA) app, which utilizes sensing technologies and capabilities of the Internet of Things (IoT). An analysis of the applicable legislative framework is provided and selected challenges encountered during the app design are discussed, which are related with the practical implications of provisions of the international and national legislation for software applications in general as well as medical devices and handling of sensitive data in particular.

On the basis of the traditional attack tree, the paper “RFID Privacy Risk Evaluation Based on Synthetic Method of Extended Attack Tree and Information Feature Entropy” presented a secure and flexible extended attack tree model, in which we added a new logical operation and a new probability of success attribute. The RFID tag information theft example was taken, characteristics of the invasion were extracted, and an RFID privacy aggressive behavior EAT model was eventually established. This model applies multiattribute utility theory to calculate the risk value of all atomic nodes and thus computes the total risk value of the probability of successful attack sequences. Finally, it combines the advantages of information feature entropy to determine atomic node privacy risks and gives the relevant attack defense proposals.

The paper “Collaborative Key Exchange System Based on Chinese Remainder Theorem in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks” presented a Cooperative Key Exchange System (CKES) based on the concept of CRT. The proposed approach is an adaptation of the IKEv2 in IP based WSN. This paper presented the details of the design and implementation of CKES in NS2. This paper has compared this with the IKE and implemented the main functionalities that can be used in WSNs. The improvement of key exchange system in WSNs which this paper has proposed with the help of this new module can offer a better lifetime of network.

The paper “A Credible Bayesian-Based Trust Management Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks” proposes a credible Bayesian-based trust management scheme (BTMS). The overall trust value is aggregated by both direct and indirect trust information. The former is calculated by a modified Bayesian equation and updated by a sliding window. The latter is computed by recommendations from a third party. Moreover, the indirect trust computation is invoked conditionally according to the uncertainty of direct trust calculated via Entropy Theory and malicious feedback is excluded. Meanwhile, different recommendations are appropriately weighed in light of the trust levels of recommenders. Simulations are conducted and the results show that, compared with existing approaches, the proposed trust model performs better in defeating attacks.

The paper “Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Intercommunication in the Internet of Things Environments” proposes an anonymous authentication scheme for intercommunication between the things in the Internet of Things environments. The proposed scheme provides not only anonymity and security, but also untraceability for the thing. Moreover, we only use low cost functions, such as hash functions and exclusive-OR operations, in consideration of limited computing power of the thing.

The paper “AuthenticPeer: A Reputation Management System for Peer-to-Peer Wireless Sensor Networks” proposes a new reputation system for P2PWSN, AuthenticPeer, which utilizes techniques from both approaches in a way that maximizes their advantages and overcomes their limitations. The proposed system has been tested thoroughly in various simulated P2PWSN environments under various numbers of files and common threat models. Experimental results illustrate enhanced performance of AuthenticPeer reputation system when compared to two P2P reputation systems, EigenTrust and Incremental EigenTrust, in terms of success rate of good users and fraction of inauthentic downloads, specifically with the threat models: individual malicious, malicious collective, camouflaged collective, and malicious spies, regardless of the number of files in the networks.

The paper “Content-Aware Fast Motion Estimation Algorithm for IoT Based Multimedia Service” proposes a video content-based fast motion estimation algorithm. The proposed algorithm achieves speed-up factors of up to 48.57% and 16.03%, on average, with good bitrate performance, compared with fast integer-pel and fractional-pel motion estimation for H.264/AVC (UMHexagonS), and an enhanced predictive zonal search for single and multiple frame motion estimation (EPZS) methods using JM 18.5, respectively. In addition, the proposed algorithm achieves a speed-up factor of up to 42.61%, on average, with negligible bitrate degradation, compared with the TZ search motion estimation algorithm for the multiview video coding (TZS) method on HM 10.0.

In the paper “Fast Video Encoding Algorithm for the Internet of Things Environment Based on High Efficiency Video Coding” a fast intraprediction unit decision method is proposed to reduce the computational complexity of the HEVC RExt encoder. The proposed algorithm achieved 12.35% time saving and a BDBR value of 1.96%, on average, over the original HM-12.0-RExt4.0 software with a Y-PSNR loss of 0.12 (dB) and a 0.81% bit increment. The proposed algorithm should be considered for the Internet of Things (IoT) environment in real-time and can be useful for real-time HEVC video encoding systems for maintenance of video quality.

The paper “Security Improvement on Biometric Based Authentication Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks using Fuzzy Extraction” proposes a security-enhanced biometric based user authentication scheme using fuzzy extraction that conforms to the proposed countermeasures. And we also conduct a security analysis for the proposed biometrics-based user authentication scheme.

The paper “Reducing Security Overhead to Enhance Service Delivery in Jini IoT” proposes a method of improving proxy preparation reducing service connection delay by completing the preparation of mutual authentication data and session key while on proxy preparation task. Through experiments on a test-bed, we have confirmed that service connection delay-time can be reduced by about 2.6 times in proportion to the message sizes through our proposed method. This paper presents an approach to reduce the additional overhead that would be paid for by applying the Jini security framework to the development of sensor application based on Jini IoT.

We hope that the readers of this special issue will find topics in the papers to be of interest and wish them a rewarding experience reading it.