Having a resilient Internet infrastructure is critical for businesses, public bodies and citizens
With the current accelerated digitization of society, sustainability should also embrace technological environments and, especially, the Internet.
Goals
SECURING aims to provide cost-effective cybersecurity and privacy technologies to endorse IoT infrastructures with the required levels of protection that are necessary for a sustainable deployment of this technology
SECURING will contribute with reliable cybersecurity IoT infrastructures focusing on intrusion detection and prevention (IDP) techniques.
This includes proposing new mechanisms for IDP in IoT infrastructures making use of advanced machine learning-based and data provenance solutions using digital watermarking techniques. These intrusion detection and prevention mechanisms will be developed at three different levels, taking into account the following scenarios:
- IDP at the wireless layer.
- IDP in cloud-based IoT networks.
- IDP in IoT vehicular networks.
SECURING will target sustainable user’s privacy in IoT environments by designing new sustainable privacy protocols.
These new protocols shall:
- provide an optimal tradeoff between data privacy, data utility and efficiency
- guarantee the openness and data flow of the data collected in the Iot infrastructure
- allow individuals to control their personal data with a user-centric approach that makes it possible to fulfill the requirements of the GDPR regulations
SECURING will propose a novel distributed privacy-preserving community-based crowdsensing communication paradigm to satisfy the communications needs for a distributed IoT sensing environment
This includes:
- defining an opportunistic community-based crowdsensing group delivery scheme
- defining an efficient group routing protocol within the neighborhood community network;
- developing security mechanisms for the delivery of routing information
- defining user privacy mechanisms provided by network delivery and routing
Partners
The KISON group from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya coordinates the project and leads the SECURING/CYBER subproject. This group specializes in security and privacy in IoT environments and blockchain technologies. This group will also contribute with its expertise in detecting and preventing cyberattacks in IoT and in the deployment of IoT platforms (including the participation in the Barcelona’s City Council CityOS project). One of the areas of expertise of UOC is the development of protocols for highly decentralized networks, including Mobile Ad-hoc Networks, Sensor Networks, Peer-to-Peer Networks, On-line Social Networks and Smart City Networks, among others. Hence, this expertise in security protocols will be focused on IoT platforms in this proposal. Regarding blockchain technologies, the UOC group has made relevant contributions in the last few years, including solutions for digital content distribution, user-centric communications for smart cities, secure data trading, and improving privacy in Bitcoin layer one and two protocols.
The CRISES group from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili leads the SECURING/DATA subproject and contributes their experience in security and privacy and, more particularly in: i) mobility; ii) cryptographic protocols designed for resource-constrained devices; iii) privacy-preserving data management and protection under the GDPR and; iv) technology transfer. Their research in mobility includes a solid track of research articles and projects devoted to Vehicular Network security and deployment of Low Emission Zones in Smart Cities. Their research on cryptographic protocols for resource-constrained devices comprises substantial work done on Sensor Networks and IoT-based services. Following this line, the group also collaborates with a research group of the Brno University with valuable background in the practical development of cryptographic primitives for devices with low computational power. The contributions of the group in the fields of privacy-preserving data management and protection under the GDPR are well known and recognized since it leads the UNESCO Chair in Data Privacy. This important grounding in this topic enables them to take care of the technologies required to protect and manage personal data in a sustainable way and provide the solutions needed by the overall project in this area. Finally, Regarding technology transfer, the research group has worked in the last years with relevant national and international companies such as SEAT, LEAR or Yahoo!. Furthermore, in the former CONSOLIDER “ARES” project (2007-2014), a first-class research project funded with more than five million euros, the group led the research valorization and transference of technology to the Industry. Accordingly, this trajectory and expertise enables them to lead the valorization of the new proposed project.
The SENDA group from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona leads the subproject SECURING/NET and carries out its research activities in the fields of opportunistic networks and blockchain technology. The research team has a wide experience in developing and researching on secure communication protocols and applications in opportunistic networks (in projects N-KHRONOUS and uSEV) and Mobile Crowd Sensing systems (projects Crowd2crowD and McSEC). The group also works in the field of blockchain technology, being the first research spanish group working in this field since 2014. The contribution of this group to the project will be focused on both, the network communication layer and the blockchain technology solution developed within the project. More precisely, the expertise on opportunistic networks will allow the development of a novel distributed privacy-preserving community-based crowdsensing communication paradigm to satisfy the communications needs for an opportunistic smart grid neighbor area network. On the other hand, the knowledge on blockchain technology, focused on second layer approaches, that improves scalability and sustainability of blockchain technology, will complement the expertise from the UOC group in this area.
Main researchers
