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Access Control in the Internet of Things

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 13504

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione "Alessandro Faedo", Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa, Via G. Moruzzi 1, 56124 PISA, Italy
Interests: access control; model-based testing; security testing; testing of Systems of Systems

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Guest Editor
Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione "Alessandro Faedo", Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa, Via G. Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Interests: access control; model-based specification and testing; security and privacy testing and assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a complex ecosystem that in the last several years has considerably improved our daily life style. In IoT networks, ubiquitous interconnected sensors, actuators, and devices produce a large amount of data, and the development of heterogeneous communication technologies allows them to exchange such data, thus enabling the creation of a number of innovative services. IoT technologies are applied in many domains, including smart home, smart city, and industrial and healthcare environments. Besides a large number of undoubted benefits, the widespread adoption of IoT technologies also raised security and privacy issues. Access control is a crucial aspect to be considered to guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of data and devices, and it is attracting increasing attention from both industry and academia. For instance, devices that actively monitor the human body’s vital signs or industrial systems deal with very sensitive and private data. Therefore, there is the necessity of  increasing research activity about access control models and frameworks so as to guarantee, on the one hand, reliability and availability in order to ensure any urgent intervention in case of emergency, and on the other hand, restricted access to prevent any tentative corrupting, stealing, or disclosing of data.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather the latest research results concerning theories, methodologies, techniques, and new solutions for access control in IoT. In particular, this volume addresses the topic of access control in IoT while considering several dimensions: languages and models, requirements and architectural solutions, security and privacy issues, verification and validation techniques as well as application domains and perspectives. Researchers, experts, and scholars from both industry and academia are encouraged to present their recent achievements, joint collaborations, and research directions in this area.

Topics of interest within access control in the IoT context include (but are not limited to):

  • Vulnerability analysis and threat mitigation
  • Data protection and privacy preservation
  • Security and privacy requirements, analysis, and specification
  • Architectures, protocols, and services in IoT
  • Access Control models
  • Context awareness of access control models
  • Access Control policy languages
  • Policy engineering
  • Access Control enforcement techniques for IoT
  • Validation and verification of access control systems
  • Validation and verification of policy and policy languages
  • Access Control frameworks and tools in IoT
  • Distributed ledgers and blockchain applications for access control in IoT
  • Access Control in Cyber-physical systems and ecosystems
  • Access Control in Systems of Systems
  • Access Control in industrial contexts
  • Access Control in smart environments (city, home, campus, vehicles, etc.)
  • Access Control for healthcare environment
  • Access Control in IoT specific domains
  • Perspectives, challenges, opportunities and issues of access control in IoT

Dr. Francesca Lonetti
Dr. Eda Marchetti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short 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 thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Vulnerability analysis and threat mitigation
  • Data protection and privacy preservation
  • Security and privacy requirements, analysis, and specification
  • Architectures, protocols, and services in IoT
  • Access Control models
  • Context awareness of access control models
  • Access Control policy languages
  • Policy engineering
  • Access Control enforcement techniques for IoT
  • Validation and verification of access control systems
  • Validation and verification of policy and policy languages
  • Access Control frameworks and tools in IoT
  • Distributed ledgers and blockchain applications for access control in IoT
  • Access Control in Cyber-physical systems and ecosystems
  • Access Control in Systems of Systems
  • Access Control in industrial contexts
  • Access Control in smart environments (city, home, campus, vehicles, etc.)
  • Access Control for healthcare environment
  • Access Control in IoT specific domains
  • Perspectives, challenges, opportunities and issues of access control in IoT

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 7811 KiB  
Article
Guidelines for Installation of Sensors in Smart Sensing Platforms in Underground Spaces
by Zhenjiang Shen, Xiao Teng, Yuntian Zhang, Guoan Fang and Wei Xu
Sensors 2022, 22(9), 3215; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22093215 - 22 Apr 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2696
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to propose guidelines for sensor installation in different types of underground space smart sensing platforms. Firstly, we classify the underground space, analyze the scene requirements according to the classification of underground space, and sort out the requirements [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study is to propose guidelines for sensor installation in different types of underground space smart sensing platforms. Firstly, we classify the underground space, analyze the scene requirements according to the classification of underground space, and sort out the requirements for sensors in various types of underground space. Secondly, according to the requirements of underground space scenes for sensors, the types of sensors and corresponding parameters are clarified. After that, the system design and sensor installation guidelines of the underground space smart sensing platform are proposed by sorting out the data acquired by the sensor. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access Control in the Internet of Things)
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24 pages, 649 KiB  
Article
A Formal Validation Approach for XACML 3.0 Access Control Policy
by Carmine Caserio, Francesca Lonetti and Eda Marchetti
Sensors 2022, 22(8), 2984; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22082984 - 13 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2179
Abstract
Access control systems represent a security mechanism to regulate the access to system resources, and XACML is the standard language for specifying, storing and deploying access control policies. The verbosity and complexity of XACML syntax as well as the natural language semantics provided [...] Read more.
Access control systems represent a security mechanism to regulate the access to system resources, and XACML is the standard language for specifying, storing and deploying access control policies. The verbosity and complexity of XACML syntax as well as the natural language semantics provided by the standard make the verification and testing of these policies difficult and error-prone. In the literature, analysis techniques and access control languages formalizations are provided for verifiability and testability purposes. This paper provides three contributions: it provides a comprehensive formal specification of XACML 3.0 policy elements; it leverages the existing policy coverage criteria to be suitable for XACML 3.0; and it introduces a new set of coverage criteria to better focus the testing activities on the peculiarities of XACML 3.0. The application of the proposed coverage criteria to a policy example is described, and hints for future research directions are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access Control in the Internet of Things)
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25 pages, 1285 KiB  
Article
An Optimization-Based Orchestrator for Resource Access and Operation Management in Sliced 5G Core Networks
by Chiu-Han Hsiao, Yean-Fu Wen, Frank Yeong-Sung Lin, Yu-Fang Chen, Yennun Huang, Yang-Che Su and Ya-Syuan Wu
Sensors 2022, 22(1), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22010100 - 24 Dec 2021
Viewed by 1733
Abstract
Network slicing is a promising technology that network operators can deploy the services by slices with heterogeneous quality of service (QoS) requirements. However, an orchestrator for network operation with efficient slice resource provisioning algorithms is essential. This work stands on Internet service provider [...] Read more.
Network slicing is a promising technology that network operators can deploy the services by slices with heterogeneous quality of service (QoS) requirements. However, an orchestrator for network operation with efficient slice resource provisioning algorithms is essential. This work stands on Internet service provider (ISP) to design an orchestrator analyzing the critical influencing factors, namely access control, scheduling, and resource migration, to systematically evolve a sustainable network. The scalability and flexibility of resources are jointly considered. The resource management problem is formulated as a mixed-integer programming (MIP) problem. A solution approach based on Lagrangian relaxation (LR) is proposed for the orchestrator to make decisions to satisfy the high QoS applications. It can investigate the resources required for access control within a cost-efficient resource pool and consider allocating or migrating resources efficiently in each network slice. For high system utilization, the proposed mechanisms are modeled in a pay-as-you-go manner. Furthermore, the experiment results show that the proposed strategies perform the near-optimal system revenue to meet the QoS requirement by making decisions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access Control in the Internet of Things)
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13 pages, 754 KiB  
Article
CoMeT: Configurable Tagged Memory Extension
by Jinjae Lee, Derry Pratama, Minjae Kim, Howon Kim and Donghyun Kwon
Sensors 2021, 21(22), 7771; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21227771 - 22 Nov 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2239
Abstract
Commodity processor architectures are releasing various instruction set extensions to support security solutions for the efficient mitigation of memory vulnerabilities. Among them, tagged memory extension (TME), such as ARM MTE and SPARC ADI, can prevent unauthorized memory access by utilizing tagged memory. However, [...] Read more.
Commodity processor architectures are releasing various instruction set extensions to support security solutions for the efficient mitigation of memory vulnerabilities. Among them, tagged memory extension (TME), such as ARM MTE and SPARC ADI, can prevent unauthorized memory access by utilizing tagged memory. However, our analysis found that TME has performance and security issues in practical use. To alleviate these, in this paper, we propose CoMeT, a new instruction set extension for tagged memory. The key idea behind CoMeT is not only to check whether the tag values in the address tag and memory tag are matched, but also to check the access permissions for each tag value. We implemented the prototype of CoMeT on the RISC-V platform. Our evaluation results confirm that CoMeT can be utilized to efficiently implement well-known security solutions, i.e., shadow stack and in-process isolation, without compromising security. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access Control in the Internet of Things)
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Review

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26 pages, 791 KiB  
Review
Protocol-Based and Hybrid Access Control for the IoT: Approaches and Research Opportunities
by Shantanu Pal and Zahra Jadidi
Sensors 2021, 21(20), 6832; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21206832 - 14 Oct 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3284
Abstract
Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services are becoming more prevalent in our everyday life. However, such an interconnected network of intelligent physical entities needs appropriate security to sensitive information. That said, the need for proper authentication and authorization is paramount. Access control [...] Read more.
Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services are becoming more prevalent in our everyday life. However, such an interconnected network of intelligent physical entities needs appropriate security to sensitive information. That said, the need for proper authentication and authorization is paramount. Access control is in the front line of such mechanisms. Access control determines the use of resources only to the specified and authorized users based on appropriate policy enforcement. IoT demands more sophisticated access control in terms of its usability and efficiency in protecting sensitive information. This conveys the need for access control to serve system-specific requirements and be flexibly combined with other access control approaches. In this paper, we discuss the potential for employing protocol-based and hybrid access control for IoT systems and examine how that can overcome the limitations of traditional access control mechanisms. We also focus on the key benefits and constraints of this integration. Our work further enhances the need to build hierarchical access control for large-scale IoT systems (e.g., Industrial IoT (IIoT) settings) with protocol-based and hybrid access control approaches. We, moreover, list the associated open issues to make such approaches efficient for access control in large-scale IoT systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Access Control in the Internet of Things)
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