Abstract

With the widespread popularity of Internet-enabled devices, there is an exponential increase in the information sharing among different geographically located smart devices. These smart devices may be heterogeneous in nature and may use different communication protocols for information sharing among themselves. Moreover, the data shared may also change with respect to various Vs (volume, velocity, variety, and value) to categorize it as big data. However, as these devices communicate with each other using an open channel, the Internet, there is a higher chance of information leakage during communication. Most of the existing solutions reported in the literature ignore these facts. Keeping focus on these points, in this article, we propose secure storage, verification, and auditing (SecSVA) of big data in cloud environment. SecSVA includes the following modules: an attribute-based secure data deduplication framework for data storage on the cloud, Kerberos-based identity verification and authentication, and Merkle hash-tree-based trusted third-party auditing on cloud. From the analysis, it is clear that SecSVA can provide secure third party auditing with integrity preservation across multiple domains in the cloud environment.

Abstract

With advancements in information and communication technology, there is a steep increase in the remote healthcare applications in which patients can get treatment from the remote places also. The data collected about the patients by remote healthcare applications constitute big data because it varies with volume, velocity, variety, veracity, and value. To process such a large collection of heterogeneous data is one of the biggest challenges which requires a specialized approach. To address this challenge, a new fuzzy rule based classifier is presented in this paper with an aim to provide Healthcare-as-a-Service. The proposed scheme is based upon the initial cluster formation, retrieval, and processing of the big data in cloud environment. Then, a fuzzy rule based classifier is designed for efficient decision making for data classification in the proposed scheme. To perform inferencing from the collected data, membership functions are designed for fuzzification and defuzzification processes. The proposed scheme is evaluated on various evaluation metrics, such as average response time, accuracy, computation cost, classification time, and false positive ratio. The results obtained confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme with respect to various performance evaluation metrics in cloud computing environment.

Abstract

It is well known that it is impossible to clone an arbitrary quantum state. However, this inability does not lead directly to no-cloning of quantum coherence. Here, we show that it is impossible to clone the coherence of an arbitrary quantum state which is a stronger statement than the ’no-cloning of quantum state’. In particular, with ancillary system as machine state, we show that it is impossible to clone the coherence of states whose coherence is greater than the coherence of the known states on which the transformations are defined. Also, we characterize the class of states for which coherence cloning will be possible for a given choice of machine. Furthermore, we find the maximum range of states whose coherence can be cloned perfectly. The impossibility proof also holds when we do not include machine states.

Abstract

Emerging Cloud computing paradigm came up with the on-demand ubiquitous service sharing facility via the Internet. In this synergy, the cloud service providers provide various services, namely, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) to their clients. In such a provision, both the end parties demand proper auditing so that the resources can be legitimately utilized, and meanwhile the privacy is also preserved. In order to achieve this goal, there is a need for designing an efficient and robust authentication mechanism. Though other existing authentication protocols, such as Kerberos, Open Authorization (OAuth) and OpenID are proposed in the literature, they are vulnerable to various security threats such as replay, online dictionary, offline dictionary, stolen-verifier, impersonation, denial-of-service, privileged-insider and man-in-the-middle attacks. In this paper, we aim to propose an authentication protocol which overcomes these security loopholes in the existing protocols. In the proposed protocol, a new dynamic password-based two-server authentication and key exchange mechanism is proposed with the help of both public and private key cryptography. Moreover, to achieve strong user anonymity property, a new multi-factor authentication scheme with identity preservation has been also introduced. The security analysis using both the formal security using the broadly-accepted Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and the informal security show that the proposed protocol protects several well-known attacks. In addition, the formal security verification using the widely-used Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) ensures that the scheme is resilient against replay as well as man-in-the-middle attacks. Finally, the performance study contemplates that the overheads incurred in the protocol is reasonable and comparable to that of other existing state-of-art authentication protocols. High security along with comparable overheads make the proposed protocol to be robust and practical for a secure access to the cloud services.

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is now a buzzword for Internet connectivity which extends to embedded devices, sensors and other objects connected to the Internet. Rapid development of this technology has led to the usage of various embedded devices in our daily life. However, for resource sharing and communication among these devices, there is a requirement for connecting these embedded devices to a large pool of resources like a cloud. The promising applications of IoT in Government and commercial sectors are possible by integrating cloud servers with these embedded devices. But such an integration of technologies involves security issues like data privacy and authentication of devices whenever information is exchanged between them. Recently, Kalra and Sood proposed an authentication scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) for IoT and cloud servers and claimed that their scheme satisfies all security requirements and is immune to various types of attacks. However, in this paper, we show that Kalra and Sood scheme is susceptible to offline password guessing and insider attacks and it does not achieve device anonymity, session key agreement, and mutual authentication. Keeping in view of the shortcomings of Kalra and Sood’s scheme, we have proposed an authentication scheme based on ECC for IoT and cloud servers. In the proposed scheme in this paper, we have formally analyzed the security properties of the designed scheme by the most widely accepted and used Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool. Security and performance analysis show that when compared with other related schemes, the proposed scheme is more powerful, efficient, and secure with respect to various known attacks.

Abstract

Smart grid (SG) is a modernized power grid that uses information and communication technologies for bidirectional flow of information between the power utilities and the consumers. Nowadays, the focus of SG has shifted towards intelligent processing and control of various operations in order to provide high quality of experience to the end users domain (consumers, smart devices, utility, etc). Therefore, in near future, for smooth execution of various operations in SG, high volume of data is expected to move across different inter-connected smart devices. So, to handle this challenge, a self-configurable network technology known as software-defined networking (SDN)that provides faster and dynamic forwarding of data through adaptable flow-table management is a viable solution. However, in SDN- enabled SG systems, security and privacy are major challenges that need to be handled effectively. So, in this paper, a lattice-based cryptosystem for secure communication in SG environment, called LaCSys, is presented which works in three phases. In first phase, a secure authentication between all the network communication entities based on lattice based key exchange scheme is designed using a third party auditor (TPA). In second phase, a lightweight lattice-based public-key encryption scheme is designed to provide data confidentiality and integrity. In last phase, a temporary key-based scheme for detection of suspicious activity is designed. The proposed crytosystem is evaluated and compared with existing scheme in order to prove its effectiveness

Abstract

The session initiation protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol which is used to controlling communication in the Internet. It is also used for initiating, terminating and maintaining the sessions. A strong authentication scheme plays a pivotal role in safeguarding communications over the Internet. In order to ensure the secure communication, several authentication schemes have been proposed for SIP in the literature. Recently, Lu et al. proposed an authentication scheme for SIP-based communications and proved that their scheme can resist various network attacks. In this paper, we show that their scheme is susceptible to the user and server impersonation attacks. Also, their scheme fails to achieve user anonymity and mutual authentication. Hence, there is a need to propose a secure ECC-based authentication scheme with user anonymity for SIP to overcome the shortcomings of Lu et al.’s scheme. Security analysis shows that the proposed scheme is able to fix the flaws found in Lu et al.’s scheme. In addition to informal security discussions, we give formal security analysis of the proposed scheme under the generic group model of cryptography. Performance analysis also shows that the proposed scheme is suitable for SIP based communication

Abstract

We first show the security limitations of a recent user authentication scheme proposed for wireless healthcare sensor networks. We then present a provably secure three-factor user authentication and key agreement protocol for wireless healthcare sensor networks. The proposed scheme supports functionality features, such as dynamic sensor node addition, password as well as biometrics update, smart card revocation along with other usual features required for user authentication in wireless sensor networks. Our scheme is shown to be secure through the rigorous formal security analysis under the Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and broadly-accepted Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic. Furthermore, the simulation through the widely-known Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool shows that our scheme is also secure. High security, and low communication and computation costs make our scheme more suitable for practical application in healthcare applications as compared to other related existing schemes

Abstract

With an exponential increase in the popularity of Internet, the real-time data collected by various smart sensing devices can be analyzed remotely by a remote user (e.g., a manager) in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). However, in the IIoT environment, the gathered real-time data is transmitted over the public channel, which raises the issues of security and privacy in this environment. Therefore, to protect illegal access by an adversary, user authentication mechanism is one of the promising security solutions in the IIoT environment. To achieve this goal, we propose a new user authenticated key agreement scheme in which only authorized users can access the services from the designated IoT sensing devices installed in the IIoT environment. In the proposed scheme, fuzzy extractor technique is used for biometric verification. Moreover, three factors, namely smart card, password and personal biometrics of a legal registered user are applied in the proposed scheme to increase the level of security in the system. The proposed scheme supports new devices addition after initial deployment of the devices, password/biometric change phase and also smart card revocation phase in case the smart card is lost or stolen by an adversary. In addition, the proposed scheme is lightweight in nature. We carry out the formal security analysis using the broadly accepted Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and also the non-mathematical (informal) security analysis on the proposed scheme. Furthermore, the formal security verification using the popularly-used AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool is carried out on the proposed scheme. The detailed security analysis assures that the proposed scheme can withstand several well-known attacks in the IIoT environment. A practical demonstration using the NS2 simulation study is also performed for the proposed scheme and other related existing schemes. Also, a detailed comparative study shows that the proposed scheme is efficient, and provides superior security in comparison to the other schemes.

Abstract

As an important part of Internet of Things, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system employs low-cost RFID tag to communicate with everything containing animate and inanimate objects. This technology is widely used in the e-healthcare applications. However, the malicious communication environment makes people more and more worried. In order to overcome the hazards in the network, RFID authentication schemes for e-healthcare have been proposed by researchers. But since the computation ability of the tag is relatively weak, it is necessary to put forward a lightweight and secure scheme for medical systems. Moreover, cloud is widely accepted by people and used in many kinds of systems. So we propose a novel and lightweight RFID authentication scheme with cloud for e-healthcare applications. We use an enhanced formal security model to prove the security of our scheme. In this model the channel between the server and the reader is considered to be insecure and informal analysis is used to prove the security of the proposed scheme. Through the formal and informal analysis, our scheme not only resists the common attacks, but also keeps mutual authentication, information integrity, forward untraceability and backward untraceability. Moreover, both the tag and the reader can reach the anonymity. Our scheme is only hash-based and suitable to realize various security requirements. Compared to recent schemes of the same sort, it is more applicable in e-healthcare.