https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_comments/2013/07/00031-86244.pdf

On the features and challenges of security and privacy in distributed internet of things

The sharp increase in the number of smartphones on the market, with the Android platform posed to becoming a market leader makes the need for malware analysis on this platform an urgent issue.In this paper we capitalize on earlier approaches for dynamic analysis of application behavior as a means for detecting malware in the Android platform. The detector is embedded in a overall framework for collection of traces from an unlimited number of real users based on crowdsourcing. Our framework has been demonstrated by analyzing the data collected in the central server using two types of data sets: those from artificial malware created for test purposes, and those from real malware found in the wild. The method is shown to be an effective means of isolating the malware and alerting the users of a downloaded malware. This shows the potential for avoiding the spreading of a detected malware to a larger community.

/pdf/crowdroid-behavior-based-malware-detection-system-for-x2tq6w9qk1.pdf

Crowdroid: behavior-based malware detection system for Android

Microarchitectural timing channels expose hidden hardware states though timing. We survey recent attacks that exploit microarchitectural features in shared hardware, especially as they are relevant for cloud computing. We classify types of attacks according to a taxonomy of the shared resources leveraged for such attacks. Moreover, we take a detailed look at attacks used against shared caches. We survey existing countermeasures. We finally discuss trends in attacks, challenges to combating them, and future directions, especially with respect to hardware support.

A survey of microarchitectural timing attacks and countermeasures on contemporary hardware

Remote attestation is the activity of making a claim about properties of a target by supplying evidence to an appraiser over a network. We identify five central principles to guide development of attestation systems. We argue that (i) attestation must be able to deliver temporally fresh evidence; (ii) comprehensive information about the target should be accessible; (iii) the target, or its owner, should be able to constrain disclosure of information about the target; (iv) attestation claims should have explicit semantics to allow decisions to be derived from several claims; and (v) the underlying attestation mechanism must be trustworthy. We illustrate how to acquire evidence from a running system, and how to transport it via protocols to remote appraisers. We propose an architecture for attestation guided by these principles. Virtualized platforms, which are increasingly well supported on stock hardware, provide a natural basis for our attestation architecture.

/pdf/principles-of-remote-attestation-54p9e68sny.pdf

Principles of remote attestation

In the centralized Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) architecture there exists a central entity, which acquires, processes and provides information from sensor nodes. Conversely, in the WSN applications in distributed Internet of Things (IoT) architecture, sensor nodes sense data, process, exchange information and perform collaboratively with other sensor nodes and endusers. In order to maintain the trustworthy connectivity and the accessibility of distributed IoT, it is important to establish secure links for end-to-end communication with proper authentication. The authors propose an implicit certificate-based authentication mechanism for WSNs in distributed IoT applications. The developed two-phase authentication protocol allows the sensor nodes and the end-users to authenticate each other and initiate secure connections. The proposed protocol supports the resource scarcity of the sensor nodes, heterogeneity and scalability of the network. The performance and security analysis justify that the proposed scheme is viable to deploy in resource constrained WSNs.

Two-phase authentication protocol for wireless sensor networks in distributed IoT applications

Remote attestation provides the basis for one platform to establish trusts on another. In this paper, we consider the problem of attesting the correctness of program executions. We propose to measure the target program and all the objects it depends on, with an assumption that the Secure Kernel and the Trusted Platform Module provide a secure execution environment through process separation. The attestation of the target program begins with a program analysis on the source code or the binary code in order to find out the relevant executables and data objects. Whenever such a data object is accessed or a relevant executable is invoked due to the execution of the target program, its state is measured for attestation. Our scheme not only testifies to a program's execution, but also supports fine-granularity attestations and information flow checking.

/pdf/remote-attestation-on-program-execution-23ovcjbf0i.pdf

Remote attestation on program execution

The security of smart phones is increasingly important due to their rapid popularity. Mobile computing on smart phones introduces many new characteristics such as personalization, mobility, pay-for-service and limited resources. These features require additional privacy protection and resource usage constraints in addition to the security and privacy concerns on traditional computers. As one of the leading open source mobile platform, Android is also facing security challenges from the mobile environment. Although many security measures have been applied in Android, the existing security mechanism is coarse-grained and does not take into account the context information, which is of particular interest because of the mobility and personality of a smart phone device.

/pdf/context-aware-usage-control-for-android-4gx7i06rgp.pdf

Context-Aware Usage Control for Android

Though attractive as a model for elastic on-demand service, cloud computing solutions based on existing hypervisors cannot guarantee that the provider will service a user's requests correctly, and will not leak sensitive information to unauthorized parties. We introduce CertiKOS (Certified Kit Operating System), a hypervisor architecture that leverages formal certification to ensure correctness and counter information leakage in cloud computing. CertiKOS isolates guest applications not only from each other but from provider-controlled resource management mechanisms. The kernel's API gives untrusted, provider-supplied management software control over allocation and delegation of resources such as memory and I/O devices, but prohibits management code from accessing a guest's memory or other resources while in use, or from interfering with a guest's execution except through clean resource revocation. CertiKOS represents an effort to apply recent advances in certified software design to a ground-up design of a modular and evolvable certified kernel. Through machine-checkable proof certificates and runtime monitoring, CertiKOS aims to offer users the assurance of correct and leak-free execution of their cloud services.

/pdf/certikos-a-certified-kernel-for-secure-cloud-computing-k3k6h6zz4z.pdf

CertiKOS: a certified kernel for secure cloud computing

http://sei.pku.edu.cn/~yaoguo/papers/2010-SecureCOMM_published.pdf

The Web of Things (WoT), inherited from the Internet of Things (IoT), encapsulates functionalities into publishable services on the Web to enable the IoT a seamless integration with the Web The openness of the Web, in turn, directly exposes WoT to existing attacks from the Web In addition, WoT possesses characteristics of high security and privacy concerns, mobility, and limited capabilities, which require specific and additional security and privacy protection beyond existing mechanisms More importantly, WoT is inherently connected to its context, so context information must be taken into account in its security and privacy measures To address these challenges, we propose a context-aware usage control model (ConUCON), which leverages the context information to enhance data, resource, and service protection for WoT On the basis of ConUCON, we also design and implement a context-aware usage control framework on the middleware layer in our ongoing SmartHome project, to provide security and privacy protection ConUCON is designed specifically to express the context-aware usage policy specification, such that security and privacy requirements can be easily specified and enforced with the proposed model and framework Finally, we apply ConUCON to a remote appliance management prototype, as a case study, to demonstrates its feasibility in a real environment Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Liang Gu

Papers

Remote attestation on program execution

Context-Aware Usage Control for Android

CertiKOS: a certified kernel for secure cloud computing

Context-Aware Usage Control for Android

Context‐aware usage control for web of things