Trusted GNSS-Based Time Synchronization for Industry 4.0 Applications

The protection of satellite-derived timing information is becoming a fundamental requirement in Industry 4.0 applications, as well as in a growing number of critical infrastructures. All the industrial systems where several nodes or devices communicate and/or coordinate their functionalities by means of a communication network need accurate, reliable and trusted time synchronization. For instance, the correct operation of automation and control systems, measurement and automatic test systems, power generation, transmission, and distribution typically require a sub-microsecond time accuracy. This paper analyses the main attack vectors and stresses the need for software integrity control at network nodes of Industry 4.0 applications to complement existing security solutions that focus on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio-frequency spectrum and Precision Time Protocol (PTP), also known as IEEE-1588. A real implementation of a Software Integrity Architecture in accordance with Trusted Computing principles concludes the work, together with the presentation of promising results obtained with a flexible and reconfigurable testbed for hands-on activities.

RIPTE: Runtime Integrity Protection Based on Trusted Execution for IoT Device

Software attacks like worm, botnet, and DDoS are the increasingly serious problems in IoT, which had caused large-scale cyber attack and even breakdown of important information infrastructure. Software measurement and attestation are general methods to detect software integrity and their executing states in IoT. However, they cannot resist TOCTOU attack due to their static features and seldom verify correctness of control flow integrity. In this paper, we propose a novel and practical scheme for software trusted execution based on lightweight trust. Our scheme RIPTE combines dynamic measurement and control flow integrity with PUF device binding key. Through encrypting return address of program function by PUF key, RIPTE can protect software integrity at runtime on IoT device, enabling to prevent the code reuse attacks. The results of our prototype’s experiment show that it only increases a small size TCB and has a tiny overhead in IoT devices under the constraint on function calling. In sum, RIPTE is secure and efficient in IoT device protection at runtime.