Title: SIREN: a feasible moving target defence framework for securing resource-constrained embedded nodes

Authors: Ermanno Battista; Valentina Casola; Antonino Mazzeo; Nicola Mazzocca

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples Federico II, via Claudio 21, Napoli, Italy ' Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples Federico II, via Claudio 21, Napoli, Italy ' Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples Federico II, via Claudio 21, Napoli, Italy ' Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples Federico II, via Claudio 21, Napoli, Italy

Abstract: Embedded nodes are widely used in several application domains thanks to low-costs and their data acquisition and processing capabilities. In the recent years, particular emphasis was given to pervasive wireless sensor nodes that enabled innovative applications for infrastructure monitoring, crowd-source sensing and mobile cyber-physical infrastructure. Indeed, security is one of the main open challenges to face; available security solutions are not able to cope with new attack scenarios and proactive measures to protect nodes are needed. Techniques aimed at continuously changing a system configuration, recently referred to as moving target defence (MTD), are emerging to improve the security level provided by the system but their feasibility in resource constrained environment should be evaluated. Starting from these considerations, in this paper, we propose a reconfiguration framework for embedded nodes that is able to enhance the performance of available reconfiguration tools and also to enable the MTD approach in battery-supplied wireless sensor nodes. We will illustrate the details of the proposed architecture, named SIREN and we will evaluate the feasibility of the proposed solution. First experimental results will show the great advantages of this proposal against available solutions.

Keywords: moving target defence; MTD; node security; embedded nodes; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; security reconfiguration; remote reprogramming; reconfiguration mechanisms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCCBS.2013.059053

International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems, 2013 Vol.4 No.4, pp.374 - 392

Received: 02 Apr 2013
Accepted: 13 Nov 2013
Published online: 29 Apr 2014 *

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