Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks

A special issue of Future Internet (ISSN 1999-5903).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2017) | Viewed by 65488

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Special Issue Editors

Dept. of Information and Communications Engineering, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Interests: intrusion detection systems; security and privacy; Internet of Things
School of Computer Science and Educational Software, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Interests: system security; network security; trusted computing
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Being the dawn of 5G networks, and the era of the Internet-of-Things, wireless and mobile networking has become increasingly ubiquitous. In this landscape, security and privacy turn into decisive factors. That is, the mobile and wireless ecosystem is an ideal playground for many perpetrators: (i) handheld devices are used for critical tasks, such as e-commerce, bank transactions, payments, application purchases, as well as social interaction, (ii) such devices uniquely identify their users and store sensitive and detailed information about them, and (iii) despite all their sophistication, native security mechanisms of mobile operating systems can be bypassed, and several wireless interfaces and protocols have been proven to be vulnerable to attack. As the attacker is given so many alternative entry points for penetration, the creation of assaults against the user and the underlying systems have augmented, both in amount, as well as in matters of complexity. It is, therefore, imperative that new and advanced security and privacy-preserving measures be deployed.

To cope with the aforementioned challenges, this Special Issue is dedicated to the security and privacy aspects of mobile networks, wireless communications, as well as their apps. Particularly, apart from network and link layer security, focus is on the security and privacy of mobile software platforms and the increasingly differing spectrum of mobile or wireless apps. We encourage original and high-quality contributions, addressing both theoretical and systems research.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

  • Attacks on MAC layer, Network layer, Security infrastructure, Mobile OS
  • Users' awareness to security solutions for mobile devices
  • Security and privacy considerations for the emerging field of Internet-of-Things
  • Intrusion and malware detection in mobile ecosystems
  • Methods for locating the source of attacks
  • Privacy and security issues for wearable devices
  • Usable mobile security and privacy
  • Wireless and mobile privacy and anonymity
  • BYOD security
  • Location privacy
  • Cellular network security and fraud
  • Mobile botnets
  • Biometric user authentication and continuous authentication for smart devices

Papers with a strong cryptographic background will not be considered as part of this Special Issue.

Submission

Papers will be evaluated based on their originality, presentation, relevance and contribution to the fields of security and privacy, as well as their suitability to the Special Issue, and for their overall quality. The submitted papers have to describe original research which has not been published nor currently under review by other journals or conferences. Guest Editors will make an initial determination of the suitability and scope of all submissions. Papers that either lack originality, clarity in presentation or fall outside the scope of the special issue will not be sent for review and authors will be promptly informed in such cases.

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Internet is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 550 CHF (Swiss Francs). English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

 

Keywords

  • Security
  • privacy
  • mobile
  • wireless
  • threat
  • attack
  • vulnerability
  • defense
  • intrusion
  • anonymity
  • IoT

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 132 KiB  
Editorial
Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks
by Georgios Kambourakis, Felix Gomez Marmol and Guojun Wang
Future Internet 2018, 10(2), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10020018 - 09 Feb 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5507
Abstract
Currently, at the dawn of 5G networks, and the era of the Internet-of-Things, wireless and mobile networking is becoming increasingly ubiquitous [...]
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

17 pages, 1944 KiB  
Article
Push Attack: Binding Virtual and Real Identities Using Mobile Push Notifications
by Pierpaolo Loreti, Lorenzo Bracciale and Alberto Caponi
Future Internet 2018, 10(2), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10020013 - 31 Jan 2018
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 10108
Abstract
Popular mobile apps use push notifications extensively to offer an “always connected” experience to their users. Social networking apps use them as a real-time channel to notify users about new private messages or new social interactions (e.g., friendship request, tagging, etc.). Despite the [...] Read more.
Popular mobile apps use push notifications extensively to offer an “always connected” experience to their users. Social networking apps use them as a real-time channel to notify users about new private messages or new social interactions (e.g., friendship request, tagging, etc.). Despite the cryptography used to protect these communication channels, the strict temporal binding between the actions that trigger the notifications and the reception of the notification messages in the mobile device may represent a privacy issue. In this work, we present the push notification attack designed to bind the physical owners of mobile devices with their virtual identities, even if pseudonyms are used. In an online attack, an active attacker triggers a push notification and captures the notification packets that transit in the network. In an offline attack, a passive attacker correlates the social network activity of a user with the received push notification. The push notification attack bypasses the standard ways of protecting user privacy based on the network layer by operating at the application level. It requires no additional software on the victim’s mobile device. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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16 pages, 529 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Influence of Special On–Off Attacks on Challenge-Based Collaborative Intrusion Detection Networks
by Wenjuan Li, Weizhi Meng and Lam For Kwok
Future Internet 2018, 10(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10010006 - 08 Jan 2018
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 6827
Abstract
Intrusions are becoming more complicated with the recent development of adversarial techniques. To boost the detection accuracy of a separate intrusion detector, the collaborative intrusion detection network (CIDN) has thus been developed by allowing intrusion detection system (IDS) nodes to exchange data with [...] Read more.
Intrusions are becoming more complicated with the recent development of adversarial techniques. To boost the detection accuracy of a separate intrusion detector, the collaborative intrusion detection network (CIDN) has thus been developed by allowing intrusion detection system (IDS) nodes to exchange data with each other. Insider attacks are a great threat for such types of collaborative networks, where an attacker has the authorized access within the network. In literature, a challenge-based trust mechanism is effective at identifying malicious nodes by sending challenges. However, such mechanisms are heavily dependent on two assumptions, which would cause CIDNs to be vulnerable to advanced insider attacks in practice. In this work, we investigate the influence of advanced on–off attacks on challenge-based CIDNs, which can respond truthfully to one IDS node but behave maliciously to another IDS node. To evaluate the attack performance, we have conducted two experiments under a simulated and a real CIDN environment. The obtained results demonstrate that our designed attack is able to compromise the robustness of challenge-based CIDNs in practice; that is, some malicious nodes can behave untruthfully without a timely detection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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15 pages, 1378 KiB  
Article
An Anonymous Offline RFID Grouping-Proof Protocol
by Zhibin Zhou, Pin Liu, Qin Liu and Guojun Wang
Future Internet 2018, 10(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10010002 - 01 Jan 2018
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 6051
Abstract
As more and more items are tagged with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, grouping-proof technology is widely utilized to provide a coexistence evidence for a group of related items. Due to the wireless channel used in RFID systems, a security risk exists in [...] Read more.
As more and more items are tagged with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, grouping-proof technology is widely utilized to provide a coexistence evidence for a group of related items. Due to the wireless channel used in RFID systems, a security risk exists in the communication between the reader and tags. How to ensure the tag’s information security and to generate reliable grouping-proof becomes a hot research topic. To protect the privacy of tags, the verification of grouping-proof is traditionally executed by the verifier, and the reader is only used to collect the proof data. This approach can cause the reader to submit invalid proof data to the verifier in the event of DoP (Deny of Proof) attack. In this paper, an ECC-based, off-line anonymous grouping-proof protocol (EAGP) is proposed. The protocol authorizes the reader to examine the validity of grouping-proof without knowing the identities of tags. From the security and performance analysis, the EAGP can protect the security and privacy of RFID tags, and defence impersonation and replay attacks. Furthermore, it has the ability to reduce the system overhead caused by the invalid submission of grouping-proofs. As a result, the proposed EAGP equips practical application values. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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1295 KiB  
Article
A New Lightweight Watchdog-Based Algorithm for Detecting Sybil Nodes in Mobile WSNs
by Rezvan Almas Shehni, Karim Faez, Farshad Eshghi and Manoochehr Kelarestaghi
Future Internet 2018, 10(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10010001 - 21 Dec 2017
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 6125
Abstract
Wide-spread deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) necessitates special attention to security issues, amongst which Sybil attacks are the most important ones. As a core to Sybil attacks, malicious nodes try to disrupt network operations by creating several fabricated IDs. Due to energy [...] Read more.
Wide-spread deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) necessitates special attention to security issues, amongst which Sybil attacks are the most important ones. As a core to Sybil attacks, malicious nodes try to disrupt network operations by creating several fabricated IDs. Due to energy consumption concerns in WSNs, devising detection algorithms which release the sensor nodes from high computational and communicational loads are of great importance. In this paper, a new computationally lightweight watchdog-based algorithm is proposed for detecting Sybil IDs in mobile WSNs. The proposed algorithm employs watchdog nodes for collecting detection information and a designated watchdog node for detection information processing and the final Sybil list generation. Benefiting from a newly devised co-presence state diagram and adequate detection rules, the new algorithm features low extra communication overhead, as well as a satisfactory compromise between two otherwise contradictory detection measures of performance, True Detection Rate (TDR) and False Detection Rate (FDR). Extensive simulation results illustrate the merits of the new algorithm compared to a couple of recent watchdog-based Sybil detection algorithms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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2354 KiB  
Article
Behavioural Verification: Preventing Report Fraud in Decentralized Advert Distribution Systems
by Stylianos S. Mamais and George Theodorakopoulos
Future Internet 2017, 9(4), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi9040088 - 20 Nov 2017
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5823
Abstract
Service commissions, which are claimed by Ad-Networks and Publishers, are susceptible to forgery as non-human operators are able to artificially create fictitious traffic on digital platforms for the purpose of committing financial fraud. This places a significant strain on Advertisers who have no [...] Read more.
Service commissions, which are claimed by Ad-Networks and Publishers, are susceptible to forgery as non-human operators are able to artificially create fictitious traffic on digital platforms for the purpose of committing financial fraud. This places a significant strain on Advertisers who have no effective means of differentiating fabricated Ad-Reports from those which correspond to real consumer activity. To address this problem, we contribute an advert reporting system which utilizes opportunistic networking and a blockchain-inspired construction in order to identify authentic Ad-Reports by determining whether they were composed by honest or dishonest users. What constitutes a user’s honesty for our system is the manner in which they access adverts on their mobile device. Dishonest users submit multiple reports over a short period of time while honest users behave as consumers who view adverts at a balanced pace while engaging in typical social activities such as purchasing goods online, moving through space and interacting with other users. We argue that it is hard for dishonest users to fake honest behaviour and we exploit the behavioural patterns of users in order to classify Ad-Reports as real or fabricated. By determining the honesty of the user who submitted a particular report, our system offers a more secure reward-claiming model which protects against fraud while still preserving the user’s anonymity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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2205 KiB  
Article
User Modelling Validation over the Security Awareness of Digital Natives
by Vasileios Gkioulos, Gaute Wangen and Sokratis K. Katsikas
Future Internet 2017, 9(3), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi9030032 - 10 Jul 2017
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4920
Abstract
Young generations make extensive use of mobile devices, such as smart-phones, tablets and laptops, for a variety of daily tasks with potentially critical impact, while the number of security breaches via portable devices increases exponentially. A plethora of security risks associated with these [...] Read more.
Young generations make extensive use of mobile devices, such as smart-phones, tablets and laptops, for a variety of daily tasks with potentially critical impact, while the number of security breaches via portable devices increases exponentially. A plethora of security risks associated with these devices are induced by design shortcomings and vulnerabilities related to user behavior. Therefore, deploying suitable risk treatments requires the investigation of how security experts perceive the digital natives (young people, born in the digital era), when utilizing their user behavior models in the design and analysis of related systems. In this article, we present the results of a survey performed across a multinational sample of security professionals, in comparison to our earlier study over the security awareness of digital natives. Through this study, we seek to identify divergences between user behavior and the conceptual user-models that security experts utilise in their professional tasks. Our results indicate that the experts understanding over the user behaviour does not follow a solidified user-model, while influences from personal perceptions and randomness are also noticeable. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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945 KiB  
Article
Private and Secure Distribution of Targeted Advertisements to Mobile Phones
by Stylianos S. Mamais and George Theodorakopoulos
Future Internet 2017, 9(2), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi9020016 - 01 May 2017
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5771
Abstract
Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) enables promotion companies to effectively target users with ads that best satisfy their purchasing needs. This is highly beneficial for both vendors and publishers who are the owners of the advertising platforms, such as websites and app developers, but [...] Read more.
Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) enables promotion companies to effectively target users with ads that best satisfy their purchasing needs. This is highly beneficial for both vendors and publishers who are the owners of the advertising platforms, such as websites and app developers, but at the same time creates a serious privacy threat for users who expose their consumer interests. In this paper, we categorize the available ad-distribution methods and identify their limitations in terms of security, privacy, targeting effectiveness and practicality. We contribute our own system, which utilizes opportunistic networking in order to distribute targeted adverts within a social network. We improve upon previous work by eliminating the need for trust among the users (network nodes) while at the same time achieving low memory and bandwidth overhead, which are inherent problems of many opportunistic networks. Our protocol accomplishes this by identifying similarities between the consumer interests of users and then allows them to share access to the same adverts, which need to be downloaded only once. Although the same ads may be viewed by multiple users, privacy is preserved as the users do not learn each other’s advertising interests. An additional contribution is that malicious users cannot alter the ads in order to spread malicious content, and also, they cannot launch impersonation attacks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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399 KiB  
Article
Participation and Privacy Perception in Virtual Environments: The Role of Sense of Community, Culture and Gender between Italian and Turkish
by Andrea Guazzini, Ayça Saraç, Camillo Donati, Annalisa Nardi, Daniele Vilone and Patrizia Meringolo
Future Internet 2017, 9(2), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi9020011 - 07 Apr 2017
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 6661
Abstract
Advancements in information and communication technologies have enhanced our possibilities to communicate worldwide, eliminating borders and making it possible to interact with people coming from other cultures like never happened before. Such powerful tools have brought us to reconsider our concept of privacy [...] Read more.
Advancements in information and communication technologies have enhanced our possibilities to communicate worldwide, eliminating borders and making it possible to interact with people coming from other cultures like never happened before. Such powerful tools have brought us to reconsider our concept of privacy and social involvement in order to make them fit into this wider environment. It is possible to claim that the information and communication technologies (ICT) revolution is changing our world and is having a core role as a mediating factor for social movements (e.g., Arab spring) and political decisions (e.g., Brexit), shaping the world in a faster and shared brand new way. It is then interesting to explore how the perception of this brand new environment (in terms of social engagement, privacy perception and sense of belonging to a community) differs even in similar cultures separated by recent historical reasons. Recent historical events may in effect have shaped a different psychological representation of Participation, Privacy and Sense of Community in ICT environments, determining a different perception of affordances and concerns of these complex behaviors. The aim of this research is to examine the relation between the constructs of Sense of Community, Participation and Privacy compared with culture and gender, considering the changes that have occurred in the last few years with the introduction of the web environment. A questionnaire, including ad hoc created scales for Participation and Privacy, have been administered to 180 participants from Turkey and Italy. In order to highlight the cultural differences in the perception of these two constructs, we have provided a semantic differential to both sub-samples showing interesting outcomes. The results are then discussed while taking into account the recent history of both countries in terms of the widespread of new technologies, political actions and protest movements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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3134 KiB  
Article
An Adaptive Privacy Protection Method for Smart Home Environments Using Supervised Learning
by Jingsha He, Qi Xiao, Peng He and Muhammad Salman Pathan
Future Internet 2017, 9(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi9010007 - 05 Mar 2017
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 6200
Abstract
In recent years, smart home technologies have started to be widely used, bringing a great deal of convenience to people’s daily lives. At the same time, privacy issues have become particularly prominent. Traditional encryption methods can no longer meet the needs of privacy [...] Read more.
In recent years, smart home technologies have started to be widely used, bringing a great deal of convenience to people’s daily lives. At the same time, privacy issues have become particularly prominent. Traditional encryption methods can no longer meet the needs of privacy protection in smart home applications, since attacks can be launched even without the need for access to the cipher. Rather, attacks can be successfully realized through analyzing the frequency of radio signals, as well as the timestamp series, so that the daily activities of the residents in the smart home can be learnt. Such types of attacks can achieve a very high success rate, making them a great threat to users’ privacy. In this paper, we propose an adaptive method based on sample data analysis and supervised learning (SDASL), to hide the patterns of daily routines of residents that would adapt to dynamically changing network loads. Compared to some existing solutions, our proposed method exhibits advantages such as low energy consumption, low latency, strong adaptability, and effective privacy protection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks)
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