Abstract

In this brief report, we prove that the robustness of coherence (ROC), in contrast with many popular quantitative measures of quantum coherence derived from the resource-theoretic framework of coherence, may be a subadditive for a specific class of multipartite quantum states. We investigate how the subadditivity is affected by admixture with other classes of states for which ROC is superadditive. We show that pairs of quantum states may have different orderings with respect to relative entropy of coherence, l1-norm of coherence and ROC and numerically study the difference in ordering for the chosen pairwise coherence measures.

Abstract

This work presents the design of a low phase noise LC oscillator (LCO) for a phase locked loop (PLL)-free receiver (RX), which is used for wireless sensor nodes based healthcare applications. A detailed analysis of phase noise of free running LCO has been presented under the influence of offchip components, which are very often inevitable in biomedical radios. Based on the analysis, a low power cross coupled LCO has been optimally designed for Medical Device Radiocommunication (MedRadio) band, which is a recommended communication band for biomedical applications. The proposed LCO has been fabricated in 180 nm CMOS technology. Measurement results show that the LCO consumes 140 μW power from 1.8 V supply and exhibits a phase noise of -103 dBc/Hz at an offset of 300 kHz, which closely matches with the post layout simulation results. Measurement results also show that the proposed …

Abstract

Fog computing (fog networking) is known as a decentralized computing infrastructure in which data, applications, compute as well as data storage are scattered in the most logical and efficient place among the data source (i.e., smart devices) and the cloud. It gives better services than cloud computing because it has better performance with reasonably low cost. Since the cloud computing has security and privacy issues, and fog computing is an extension of cloud computing, it is therefore obvious that fog computing will inherit those security and privacy issues from cloud computing. In this paper, we design a new secure key management and user authentication scheme for fog computing environment, called SAKA-FC. SAKAFC is efficient as it only uses the lightweight operations, such as one-way cryptographic hash function and bitwise exclusive-OR (XOR), for the smart devices as they are resource-constrained in nature. SAKAFC is shown to be secure with the help of the formal security analysis using the broadly accepted RealOr-Random (ROR) model, the formal security verification using the widely-used Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool and also the informal security analysis. In addition, SAKA-FC is implemented for practical demonstration using the widely-used NS2 simulator.

Abstract

Cyber security refers to the protection of Internet-connected systems, such as hardware, software as well as data (information) from cyber attacks (adversaries). A cyber security regulation is needed in order to protect information technology along with computer systems with the purpose of compelling various organizations as well as companies to protect their systems and information from cyber attacks. Several cyber attacks are possible, such as viruses, phishing, Trojan horses, worms, Denial-ofService (DoS) attacks, illegal access (e.g., stealing intellectual property or confidential information) as well as control system attacks. In this article, we focus on importance of various standards in cyber defense, and architecture of cyber security framework. We discuss the security threats, attacks and measures in cyber security. We then discuss various standardization challenges in cyber security. We also discuss about the cyber security national strategy to secure cyberspace and also various government policies in protecting the cyber security. Finally, we provide some recommendations that are critical to cyber security and cyber defense. Keywords: Cyber security, Cyber attacks, Information security, Government policies, Standards.

Abstract

Industrial wireless sensor network (IWSN) is an emerging class of a generalized WSN having constraints of energy consumption, coverage, connectivity, and security. However, security and privacy is one of the major challenges in IWSN as the nodes are connected to Internet and usually located in an unattended environment with minimum human interventions. In IWSN, there is a fundamental requirement for a user to access the real-time information directly from the designated sensor nodes. This task demands to have a user authentication protocol. To satisfy this requirement, this paper proposes a lightweight and privacy-preserving mutual user authentication protocol in which only the user with a trusted device has the right to access the IWSN. Therefore, in the proposed scheme, we considered the physical layer security of the sensor nodes. We show that the proposed scheme ensures security even if a sensor node is captured by an adversary. The proposed protocol uses the lightweight cryptographic primitives, such as one way cryptographic hash function, physically unclonable function, and bitwise exclusive operations. Security and performance analysis shows that the proposed scheme is secure, and is efficient for the resource-constrained sensing devices in IWSN.

Abstract

Recently, the Tactile Internet (TI) becomes a new era of the Internet. The TI provides ultra-reliable, ultra-responsive and intelligent network connectivity for delivering real-time control and physical haptic experiences from a remote location. The TI provides a different feeling to human–machine interaction by implementing the real-time interactive systems. In this review article, we discuss a generalized authentication model which can be used to perform authentication procedure among different communicating parties in order to secure remote surgery in the TI environment. By using the proposed authentication model, an authentication protocol can be designed so that an authenticated surgeon can use the robot/robotic arms to perform the surgery securely as well as remotely. Since the application is very critical, the important instructions provided by the surgeon to the robot/robotic arms must not be leaked in between the communication during the surgical procedure. To deal with this emerging research area, a secure mutual user authentication mechanism should be provided between a remote surgeon and the robot/robotic arms so that they can communicate securely using the established session key among them. Further, several security issues and challenges for such kind of communication are also discussed in this article. Finally, we discuss few points that need to be considered as future research works that are related to authentication for securing remote surgery in the TI environment.

Abstract

For secure communication between any two neighboring sensing devices on the Internet of Things (IoT) environment, it is essential to design a secure device access control and key agreement protocol, in which the two phases, namely, ‘‘node authentication’’ and ‘‘key agreement’’ are involved. While the node authentication allows two sensing devices to authenticate each other using their own pre-loaded secret credentials in memory, the key agreement phase permits to establish a secret key between them if the mutual authentication is successful. In this paper, we propose a new certificate-based ‘‘lightweight access control and key agreement protocol in the IoT environment, called LACKA-IoT,’’ that utilizes the elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) along with the ‘‘collision-resistant one-way cryptographic hash function.’’ Through a detailed security analysis using the formal security under the ‘‘Real-Or-Random (ROR) model,’’ informal (non-mathematical) security analysis, and formal security verification using the broadly used ‘‘Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA)’’ tool, we show that the LACKA-IoT can protect various known attacks that are needed for a secure device access control mechanism in the IoT. Furthermore, through a comparative study of the LACKA-IoT and other relevant schemes, we show that there is a better tradeoff among the security and functionality features and communication and computational costs of the LACKA-IoT as compared to other schemes. Finally, the ‘‘practical demonstration using the NS2 simulation’’ has been carried out on the LACKA-IoT to measure various network parameters

Abstract

With the smart grid (SG) and the social Internet of Things (SIoT), an electric vehicle operator can use reliable, flexible, and efficient charging service with vehicle-to-grid (V2G). However, open channels can be vulnerable to various attacks by a malicious adversary. Therefore, secure mutual authentication for V2G has become essential, and numerous related protocols have been proposed. In 2018, Shen et al. proposed a privacy-preserving and lightweight key agreement protocol for V2G in SIoT to ensure security. However, we demonstrate that their protocol does not withstand impersonation, privileged-insider, and offline password guessing attacks, and it does not also guarantee secure mutual authentication, session key security, and perfect forward secrecy. Therefore, this paper proposes a dynamic privacy-preserving and lightweight key agreement protocol for V2G in SIoT to resolve the security weaknesses of Shen et al.'s protocol. The proposed protocol resists several attacks including impersonation, offline password guessing, man-in-the-middle, replay, and trace attacks, ensures anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, session key security, and secure mutual authentication. We evaluate the security of the proposed protocol using formal security analysis under the broadly-accepted real-or-random (ROR) model, secure mutual authentication proof using the widely-accepted Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic, informal (non-mathematical) security analysis, and also the formal security verification using the broadly-accepted automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications (AVISPA) tool. We then compare computation costs, and security and functionality features of the proposed protocol with related protocols. Overall, the proposed protocol provides superior security, and it can be efficiently deployed to practical SIoT-based V2G environment.

Abstract

The devices in smart grids (SG) transfer data to a utility center (UC) or to the remote control centers. Using these data, the energy balance is maintained between consumers and the grid. However, this flow of data may be tampered by the intruders, which may result in energy imbalance. Thus, a robust authentication protocol, which supports dynamic SG device validation and UC addition, both in the local and global domains, is an essential requirement. For this reason, ECCAuth: a novel elliptic curve cryptography-based authentication protocol is proposed in this paper for preserving demand response in SG. This protocol allows establishment of a secret session key between an SG device and a UC after mutual authentication. Using this key, they can securely communicate for exchanging the sensitive information. The formal security analysis, informal security analysis, and formal security verification show that ECCAuth can withstand several known attacks

Abstract

With recent advancements in the field of wearable devices based on Internet of Things (IoT), the concept of flexible and stretchable electronic systems has become increasingly significant. Although decades of dimensional scaling have led to the miniaturization of the traditional complementary metal oxide semiconductor-(CMOS-) based electronic components, they still remain mechanically rigid and brittle. These rigid devices can be mounted on flexible PCB substrates to obtain a certain degree of flexibility; however, this technique cannot lead to truly body conformal electronic systems. Thus, research teams around the world have been looking at various ways of obtaining completely flexible electronic components at the device level itself. These efforts include various processes to thin down silicon chips to make them flexible or development and use of flexible and stretchable substrate materials to fabricate electronic devices. The thinning down process for traditional silicon-based electronic chips can be performed before or after the complete transistor fabrication process [1]. These approaches are referred to as “device first” approach or “device last” approach. In case of the device last approach, thin films of single crystal silicon are transfer printed to a flexible substrate and processed further to fabricate CMOS circuitry [2, 3]. However, in this approach, many high-temperature steps have to be avoided due to the limited thermal stability of the flexible substrate, leading to a suboptimal circuit. In case of the device first approach, the circuits are made on the silicon substrate using state-of-the-art CMOS processes as usual. After completion of the …