Hybrid post-quantum Transport Layer Security formal analysis in Maude-NPA and its parallel version

This article presents a security formal analysis of the hybrid post-quantum Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, a quantum-resistant version of the TLS protocol proposed by Amazon Web Services as a precaution in dealing with future attacks from quantum computers. In addition to a classical key exchange algorithm, the proposed protocol uses a post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, which is believed invulnerable under quantum computers, so the protocol's key negotiation is called the hybrid key exchange scheme. One of our assumptions about the intruder's capabilities is that the intruder is able to break the security of the classical key exchange algorithm by utilizing the power of large quantum computers. For the formal analysis, we use Maude-NPA and a parallel version of Maude-NPA (called Par-Maude-NPA) to conduct experiments. The security properties under analysis are (1) the secrecy property of the shared secret key established between two honest principals with the classical key exchange algorithm, (2) a similar secrecy property but with the post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism, and (3) the authentication property. Given the time limit T = 1,722 h (72 days), Par-Maude-NPA found a counterexample of (1) at depth 12 in T, while Maude-NPA did not find it in T. At the same time T, Par-Maude-NPA did not find any counterexamples of (2) and (3) up to depths 12 and 18, respectively, and neither did Maude-NPA. Therefore, the protocol does not enjoy (1), while it enjoys (2) and (3) up to depths 12 and 18, respectively. Subsequently, the secrecy property of the master secret holds for the protocol up to depth 12.

Cloud-edge load balancing distributed protocol for IoE services using swarm intelligence

Rapid development of the Internet of Everything (IoE) and cloud services offer a vital role in the growth of smart applications. It provides scalability with the collaboration of cloud servers and copes with a big amount of collected data for network systems. Although, edge computing supports efficient utilization of communication bandwidth, and latency requirements to facilitate smart embedded systems. However, it faces significant research issues regarding data aggregation among heterogeneous network services and objects. Moreover, distributed systems are more precise for data access and storage, thus machine-to-machine is needed to be secured from unpredictable events. As a result, this research proposed secured data management with distributed load balancing protocol using particle swarm optimization, which aims to decrease the response time for cloud users and effectively maintain the integrity of network communication. It combines distributed computing and shift high cost computations closer to the requesting node to reduce latency and transmission overhead. Moreover, the proposed work also protects the communicating machines from malicious devices by evaluating the trust in a controlled manner. Simulation results revealed a significant performance of the proposed protocol in comparison to other solutions in terms of energy consumption by 20%, success rate by 17%, end-to-end delay by 14%, and network cost by 19% as average in the light of various performance metrics.

Pseudorandom number generator based on novel 2D Hénon-Sine hyperchaotic map with microcontroller implementation

Recently, chaotic maps have been considered to design pseudorandom number generator (PRNG). However, some chaotic maps present security disadvantages, such as low uniformity and low randomness properties. Nowadays, chaos-based PRNGs are used as the main source for the development of cryptographic algorithms. In this work, to overcome such weaknesses, a novel 2D hyperchaotic map is proposed based on discrete-time feedback by using Hénon map and Sine map. In addition, the dynamics of the hyperchaotic map are enhanced by using the remainder after division function (rem), where better random statistical properties are obtained. A comparison is made between the enhanced Hénon-Sine hyperchaotic map (EHSHM) and the Hénon-Sine hyperchaotic map through Lyapunov exponent analysis, attractor trajectory, histograms and sensitivity at initialization. Then, 8-bit pseudorandom number generator based on the proposed hyperchaotic map (PRNG-EHSHM) is designed and the initial seed of the PRNG is calculated by a secret key of 60 hexadecimal characters. It is implemented in both MATLAB and Arduino Mega microcontroller for experimental results. A complete security analysis is presented from a cryptographic point of view, such as key space, floating frequency, histograms and entropy of the information. Moreover, the randomness is verified with the tests of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST 800-22). Based on the security results obtained, the proposed PRNG-EHSHM can be implemented in embedded cryptographic applications based on chaos.

Data-flow-based adaption of the System-Theoretic Process Analysis for Security (STPA-Sec)

Security analysis is an essential activity in security engineering to identify potential system vulnerabilities and specify security requirements in the early design phases. Due to the increasing complexity of modern systems, traditional approaches lack the power to identify insecure incidents caused by complex interactions among physical systems, human and social entities. By contrast, the System-Theoretic Process Analysis for Security (STPA-Sec) approach views losses as resulting from interactions, focuses on controlling system vulnerabilities instead of external threats, and is applicable for complex socio-technical systems. However, the STPA-Sec pays less attention to the non-safety but information-security issues (e.g., data confidentiality) and lacks efficient guidance for identifying information security concepts. In this article, we propose a data-flow-based adaption of the STPA-Sec (named STPA-DFSec) to overcome the mentioned limitations and elicit security constraints systematically. We use the STPA-DFSec and STPA-Sec to analyze a vehicle digital key system and investigate the relationship and differences between both approaches, their applicability, and highlights. To conclude, the proposed approach can identify information-related problems more directly from the data processing aspect. As an adaption of the STPA-Sec, it can be used with other STPA-based approaches to co-design systems in multi-disciplines under the unified STPA framework.

Smart Home-based IoT for Real-time and Secure Remote Health Monitoring of Triage and Priority System using Body Sensors: Multi-driven Systematic Review

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been identified in various applications across different domains, such as in the healthcare sector. IoT has also been recognised for its revolution in reshaping modern healthcare with aspiring wide range prospects, including economical, technological and social. This study aims to establish IoT-based smart home security solutions for real-time health monitoring technologies in telemedicine architecture. A multilayer taxonomy is driven and conducted in this study. In the first layer, a comprehensive analysis on telemedicine, which focuses on the client and server sides, shows that other studies associated with IoT-based smart home applications have several limitations that remain unaddressed. Particularly, remote patient monitoring in healthcare applications presents various facilities and benefits by adopting IoT-based smart home technologies without compromising the security requirements and potentially large number of risks. An extensive search is conducted to identify articles that handle these issues, related applications are comprehensively reviewed and a coherent taxonomy for these articles is established. A total number of (n = 3064) are gathered between 2007 and 2017 for most reliable databases, such as ScienceDirect, Web of Science and Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineer Xplore databases. Then, the articles based on IoT studies that are associated with telemedicine applications are filtered. Nine articles are selected and classified into two categories. The first category, which accounts for 22.22% (n = 2/9), includes surveys on telemedicine articles and their applications. The second category, which accounts for 77.78% (n = 7/9), includes articles on the client and server sides of telemedicine architecture. The collected studies reveal the essential requirement in constructing another taxonomy layer and review IoT-based smart home security studies. Therefore, IoT-based smart home security features are introduced and analysed in the second layer. The security of smart home design based on IoT applications is an aspect that represents a crucial matter for general occupants of smart homes, in which studies are required to provide a better solution with patient security, privacy protection and security of users' entities from being stolen or compromised. Innovative technologies have dispersed limitations related to this matter. The existing gaps and trends in this area should be investigated to provide valuable visions for technical environments and researchers. Thus, 67 articles are obtained in the second layer of our taxonomy and are classified into six categories. In the first category, 25.37% (n = 17/67) of the articles focus on architecture design. In the second category, 17.91% (n = 12/67) includes security analysis articles that investigate the research status in the security area of IoT-based smart home applications. In the third category, 10.44% (n = 7/67) includes articles about security schemes. In the fourth category, 17.91% (n = 12/67) comprises security examination. In the fifth category, 13.43% (n = 9/67) analyses security protocols. In the final category, 14.92% (n = 10/67) analyses the security framework. Then, the identified basic characteristics of this emerging field are presented and provided in the following aspects. Open challenges experienced on the development of IoT-based smart home security are addressed to be adopted fully in telemedicine applications. Then, the requirements are provided to increase researcher's interest in this study area. On this basis, a number of recommendations for different parties are described to provide insights on the next steps that should be considered to enhance the security of smart homes based on IoT. A map matching for both taxonomies is developed in this study to determine the novel risks and benefits of IoT-based smart home security for real-time remote health monitoring within client and server sides in telemedicine applications.

A Double Chaotic Layer Encryption Algorithm for Clinical Signals in Telemedicine

Recently, telemedicine offers medical services remotely via telecommunications systems and physiological monitoring devices. This scheme provides healthcare delivery services between physicians and patients conveniently, since some patients can not attend the hospital due to any reason. However, transmission of information over an insecure channel such as internet or private data storing generates a security problem. Therefore, authentication, confidentiality, and privacy are important challenges in telemedicine, where only authorized users should have access to medical or clinical records. On the other hand, chaotic systems have been implemented efficiently in cryptographic systems to provide confidential and privacy. In this work, we propose a novel symmetric encryption algorithm based on logistic map with double chaotic layer encryption (DCLE) in diffusion process and just one round of confusion-diffusion for the confidentiality and privacy of clinical information such as electrocardiograms (ECG), electroencephalograms (EEG), and blood pressure (BP) for applications in telemedicine. The clinical signals are acquired from PhysioBank data base for encryption proposes and analysis. In contrast with recent schemes in literature, we present a secure cryptographic algorithm based on chaos validated with the most complete security analysis until this time. In addition, the cryptograms are validated with the most complete pseudorandomness tests based on National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-22 suite. All results are at MATLAB simulations and all them show the effectiveness, security, robustness, and the potential use of the proposed scheme in telemedicine.