Now showing 1 - 10 of 53
  • Publication
    Micro-Operator driven Local 5G Network Architecture for Industrial Internet
    In addition to the high degree of flexibility and customization required by different vertical sectors, 5G calls for a network architecture that ensures ultra-responsive and ultra-reliable communication links. The novel concept called micro-operator (uO) enables a versatile set of stakeholders to operate local 5G networks within their premises with a guaranteed quality and reliability to complement mobile network operators' (MNOs) offerings. In this paper, we propose a descriptive architecture for emerging 5G uOs which provides user specific and location specific services in a spatially confined environment. The architecture is discussed in terms of network functions and the operational units which entail the core and radio access networks in a smart factory environment which supports industry 4.0 standards. Moreover, in order to realize the conceptual design, we provide simulation results for the latency measurements of the proposed uO architecture with respect to an augmented reality use case in industrial internet. Thereby we discuss the benefits of having uO driven local 5G networks for specialized user requirements, rather than continuing with the conventional approach where only MNOs can deploy cellular networks.
    Scopus© Citations 27  407
  • Publication
    Novel MEC based Approaches for Smart Hospitals to Combat COVID-19 Pandemic
    COVID-19 or Coronavirus has thrilled the entire world population with uncertainty over their survival and well-being. The impact this pathogen has caused over the globe has been profound due to its unique transmission features; that urges for contact-less strategies to interact and treat the infected. The impending 5G mobile technology is immersing the applications that enable the provisioning of medical and healthcare services in a contact-less manner. The edge computing paradigms offer a de-centralized and versatile networking infrastructure capable of adhering to the novel demands of 5G. In this article, we are considering Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) flavour of the edge paradigms for realizing the contact-less approaches that assist the mediation of COVID-19 and the future of healthcare. In order to formulate this ideology, we propose three use cases and discuss their implementation in the MEC context. Further, the requirements for launching these services are provided. Additionally, we validate our proposed approaches through simulations.
    Scopus© Citations 27  400
  • Publication
    How DoS attacks can be mounted on Network Slice Broker and can they be mitigated using blockchain?
    Several recent works talk about the potential use of network slice brokering mechanism to facilitate the resource allocation of network slicing in next generation networks. This involves network tenants on the one hand and resource/infrastructure providers on the other hand. However, the potential downside of deploying Network Slice Broker (NSB) is that it can be victimized by DoS (Denial of Service) attack. Thus, the aim of this work is three fold. First, to present the possible ways in which DoS/DDoS attacks can be mounted on NSB and their adverse effects. Second, to propose and implement initial blockchain-based solution named as Security Service Blockchain (SSB) to prevent DoS attacks on NSB. Third, to enumerate the challenges and future research directions to effectively utilize blockchain for mitigating DoS/DDoS attacks on NSB. To evaluate the performance the proposed SSB framework is implemented using Hyperledger Fabric. The results manifest that the latency impact of the legitimate slice creation over scaled up malicious traffic remains minimal with the use of SSB framework. The integration of SSB with NSB results in gaining several fold reduction in latency under DoS attack scenario.
      10Scopus© Citations 7
  • Publication
    Security as a Service Platform Leveraging Multi-Access Edge Computing Infrastructure Provisions
    The mobile service platform envisaged by emerging IoT and 5G is guaranteeing gigabit-level bandwidth, ultra-low latency and ultra-high storage capacity for their subscribers. In spite of the variety of applications plausible with the envisaged technologies, security is a demanding objective that should be applied beyond the design stages. Thus, Security as a Service (SECaaS) is an initiative for a service model that enable mobile and IoT consumers with diverse security functions such as Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDPaaS), Authentication (AaaS), and Secure Transmission Channel (STCaaS) as a Service. A well-equipped edge computing infrastructure is intrinsic to achieve this goal. The emerging Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm standardized by the ETSI is excelling among other edge computing flavours due to its well-defined structure and protocols. Thus, in our directive, we intend to utilize MEC as the edge computing platform to launch the SECaaS functions. Though, the actual development of a MEC infrastructure is highly dependent on the integration of virtualization technologies to enable dynamic creation, the deployment, and the detachment of virtualized entities that should feature interoperability to cater the heterogeneous IoT devices and services. To that extent, this work is proposing a security service architecture that offers these SECaaS services. Further, we validate our proposed architecture through the development of a virtualized infrastructure that integrates lightweight and hypervisor-based virtualization technologies. Our experiments prove the plausibility of launching multiple security instances on the developed prototype edge platform.
    Scopus© Citations 23  460
  • Publication
    Reliable Control and Data Planes for Softwarized Networks
    Driven by the requirement of increasing performance and flexibility, networks are being softwarized by paradigms such as software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). These solutions reduce the complexity and the specialization of hardware devices, by extracting the inherently distributed control plane of forwarding network elements such as switches and routers, to a logically centralized control plane (referred as controller in SDN). The control plane acts as a broker between the network applications (e.g. monitoring, traffic engineering) and the data plane (i.e. physical network infrastructure). For scalability and robustness, the logically centralized control plane is implemented by physically distributing different controllers throughout the network. This chapter presents different solutions to increase the reliability of both planes: data and control planes. The reliability of the data plane can be increased by considering survivable virtual network embedding solutions. This chapter proposes a survivable embedding against single and double failures at either links or nodes. Furthermore, in order to provide a programmable and resilient data plane, BPFabric has been proposed for SDN which supports high performance functions suitable for detecting attacks. On the other hand, the reliability of the control plane applied to SDN can be addressed by considering enhanced controller placement solutions providing redundancy against uncorrelated as well as targeted failures while coping with latency and capacity requirements. Furthermore, a solution to increase the security and robustness of the control channel is also addressed in this chapter.
      164
  • Publication
    A Delay-Tolerant Payment Scheme Based on the Ethereum Blockchain
    Digital banking as an essential service can be hard to access in remote, rural regions where the network connectivity is unavailable or intermittent. The payment operators like Visa and Mastercard often face difficulties reaching these remote, rural areas. Although micro-banking has been made possible by short message service or unstructured supplementary service data messages in some places, their security flaws and session-based nature prevent them from wider adoption. Global-level cryptocurrencies enable low-cost, secure, and pervasive money transferring among distributed peers, but are still limited in their ability to reach people in remote communities. We propose a blockchain-based digital payment scheme that can deliver reliable services on top of unreliable networks in remote regions. We focus on a scenario where a community-run base station provides reliable local network connectivity while intermittently connects to the broader Internet. We take advantage of the distributed verification guarantees of the Blockchain technology for financial transaction verification and leverage smart contracts for secure service management. In the proposed system, payment operators deploy multiple proxy nodes that are intermittently connected to the remote communities where the local blockchain networks, such as Ethereum are composed of miners, vendors, and regular users. Through probabilistic modeling, we devise design parameters for the blockchain network to realize robust operation over the top of the unreliable network. Furthermore, we show that the transaction processing time will not be significantly impacted due to the network unreliability through extensive emulations on a private Ethereum network. Finally, we demonstrate the practical feasibility of the proposed system by developing Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled payment gateways on Raspberry-Pis, a mobile wallet application and mining nodes on off-The-shelf computers.
      306Scopus© Citations 66
  • Publication
    The Roadmap to 6G Security and Privacy
    Although the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks are yet to be fully investigated, the visionaries of the 6th generation (6G) echo systems have already come into the discussion. Therefore, in order to consolidate and solidify the security and privacy in 6G networks, we survey how security may impact the envisioned 6G wireless systems, possible challenges with different 6G technologies, and the potential solutions. We provide our vision on 6G security and security key performance indicators (KPIs) with the tentative threat landscape based on the foreseen 6G network architecture. Moreover, we discuss the security and privacy challenges that may encounter with the available 6G requirements and potential 6G applications. We also give the reader some insights into the standardization efforts and research-level projects relevant to 6G security. In particular, we discuss the security considerations with 6G enabling technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), physical layer security, distributed AI/ML, visible light communication (VLC), THz, and quantum computing. All in all, this work intends to provide enlightening guidance for the subsequent research of 6G security and privacy at this initial phase of vision towards reality.
    Scopus© Citations 143  367
  • Publication
    Anonymous Lightweight Proxy Based Key Agreement for IoT (ALPKA)
    The Internet of Things (IoT) technologies interconnect a broad range of network devices, differing in terms of size, weight, functionality, and resource capabilities. The main challenge is to establish the required security features in the most constrained devices, even if they are unknown to each other and do not share common pre-distributed key material. As a consequence, there is a high need for scalable and lightweight key establishment protocols. In this paper, we propose a key agreement protocol between two IoT devices without prior trust relation, using solely symmetric key based operations, by relying on a server or proxy based approach. This proxy is responsible for the verification of the authentication and the key agreement between the IoT devices, without being capable of deriving the established session key. We propose two versions. The first version does not require interactive input from the key distribution center to the proxy, but is not resistant if a compromised user and proxy are collaborating. The second version on the other hand is collision resistant, but needs an interactive key distribution center. In addition, we add the interesting features of anonymity and unlinkability of the sender and receiver in both protocol versions. The security properties of the proposed protocol are verified by using formal verification techniques.
    Scopus© Citations 14  499
  • Publication
    A Survey on Security and Privacy of 5G Technologies: Potential Solutions, Recent Advancements and Future Directions
    Security has become the primary concern in many telecommunications industries today as risks can have high consequences. Especially, as the core and enable technologies will be associated with 5G network, the confidential information will move at all layers in future wireless systems. Several incidents revealed that the hazard encountered by an infected wireless network, not only affects the security and privacy concerns, but also impedes the complex dynamics of the communications ecosystem. Consequently, the complexity and strength of security attacks have increased in the recent past making the detection or prevention of sabotage a global challenge. From the security and privacy perspectives, this paper presents a comprehensive detail on the core and enabling technologies, which are used to build the 5G security model; network softwarization security, PHY (Physical) layer security and 5G privacy concerns, among others. Additionally, the paper includes discussion on security monitoring and management of 5G networks. This paper also evaluates the related security measures and standards of core 5G technologies by resorting to different standardization bodies and provide a brief overview of 5G standardization security forces. Furthermore, the key projects of international significance, in line with the security concerns of 5G and beyond are also presented. Finally, a future directions and open challenges section has included to encourage future research.
    Scopus© Citations 310  6871
  • Publication
    A Survey on Mobile Augmented Reality with 5G Mobile Edge Computing: Architectures, Applications and Technical Aspects
    The Augmented Reality (AR) technology enhances the human perception of the world by combining the real environment with the virtual space. With the explosive growth of powerful, less expensive mobile devices, and the emergence of sophisticated communication infrastructure, Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) applications are gaining increased popularity. MAR allows users to run AR applications on mobile devices with greater mobility and at a lower cost. The emerging 5G communication technologies act as critical enablers for future MAR applications to achieve ultra-low latency and extremely high data rates while Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) brings enhanced computational power closer to the users to complement MAR. This paper extensively discusses the landscape of MAR through the past and its future prospects with respect to the 5G systems and complementary technology MEC. The paper especially provides an informative analysis of the network formation of current and future MAR systems in terms of cloud, edge, localized, and hybrid architectural options. The paper discusses key application areas for MAR and their future with the advent of 5G technologies. The paper also discusses the requirements and limitations of MAR technical aspects such as communication, mobility management, energy management, service offloading and migration, security, and privacy and analyzes the role of 5G technologies.
      528Scopus© Citations 277