A Comprehensive Study of Security in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is one of the emerging technology in the recent times which has varieties of applications at different fields. It is an Internet dependent technology and it store and maintain the data in a cloud data center. Cloud center usually supports more numbers of user, applications and data. In the same time, it also suffered with numerous challenges. Security is a key requirement for cloud data center. Different security mechanisms are proposed for cloud computing environment. In this chapter, we address the background of cloud computing, security risk, requirements, issues, and some of the security techniques are discussed. We discuss different security issues and focus on some existing solutions.

Security Threats in Wireless Sensor Networks

Most of the applications of wireless sensor networks have critical tasks to be fulfilled; thus they must be secured. Recent studies focus on securing the communication between sensors and with the base station. An adversary can launch various types of attack on WSN depending on its ability and objective. These attacks can be broadly classified into two categories: 1) layer-dependent, and 2) layer-independent. Layer-dependent attacks are specific to communication protocol layers. They mostly target a node's functionality such as routing, availability, time synchronization, and data aggregation. Layer-independent attacks are not restricted to any communication protocol layers. These attacks can be launched independent of the communication protocol stack. In this chapter, we study the various attacks possessed by WSN and classify them based on their strength, action, security requirements and impact at different layers of WSN. We define metrics to evaluate the characteristic, behavior, and dependency of these attacks followed a discussion on various counter-measures to defend them.

Performance Evaluation of Quality of Service in IEEE 802.15.4-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of many tiny, autonomous sensor nodes capable of sensing, computation and communication. The main objective of IEEE 802.15.4 based WSN standard is to provide low cost, low power and short range communication. Providing QoS in WSN is a challenging task due to its severe resource constraints in terms of energy, network bandwidth, memory, and CPU. In this chapter, Quality of Service (QoS) performance evaluation has been carried out for IEEE 802.15.4 networks based WSN star and mesh topology using routing protocols like AODV, DSR and DYMO in QualNet 4.5 simulator. Performance evaluations metrics like Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), throughput, average end to end delay, energy per goodput bit, network lifetime of battery model and total energy consumption which includes transmission, reception, idle and sleep mode were considered for both the topology. From the simulation studies and analysis, it can be seen that on an average DSR and DYMO performs better than AODV for different traffic load rates.

Energy Efficient Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)

Healthcare expenses are a growing concern in most countries. This has forced medical researchers to look for trusted and ambulatory health monitoring of patient's vital signs. The objective is to reduce patient visits and the use of medical and support staff for frequent examinations. Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) consist of implanted, or worn, tiny health monitoring sensor nodes so that the vital body parameters and the movements of the patient can be recorded and communicated to the medical facilities for processing, diagnosis and prescription. WBAN is required to have small form and low power consumption. Reducing energy consumption of the sensor and communication equipment is one of the key research areas. It is also important for WBAN be secure, protected and reliable. Failure to acquire authentic and correct medical data may prevent a patient from being treated effectively, or even lead to wrong treatments. As patient identity can be obtained by correlating physiological information, privacy concerns must be addressed for wide acceptance of the technology. While security is paramount, the cost of implementing security techniques in WBAN may be prohibitive. It, therefore, becomes necessary to find cryptographic solutions that consume less energy. Research efforts are being made to reduce the cost of cryptography used in WBAN. In this paper authors discuss the current and future security solutions for low energy WBAN.

Energy Aware Optimized Routing Protocols for Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Network

Advancement in wireless technology made human life become simple and easy going. Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Network (WASN) is one of the friendly wireless networks used to monitor the most unfriendly and ever changing dynamic environment that restricts continuous human attention. WASN has drawn significant attentions due to its unique capabilities to deal with complex network operation in highly resource constrained network construct. This ad hoc and unstructured deployment of tiny sensor nodes operate with controlled transmission range, processing capabilities, as well as very limited battery backup. The severe power depletion affects the existence of active nodes. Hence, data forwarding and reliable packet routing in such phenomenon oriented network becoming a challenge. In this chapter the clustering and hierarchical routing approaches for WASN environment has been briefly presented followed by some optimization strategies applicable to cluster routing process. This chapter can help researchers to think fresh dimensions of ongoing research in WASN cluster routing.

Internet of Things Services, Applications, Issues, and Challenges

Internet of Things (IoT) is not a futuristic intuition, it is present everywhere. It is with devices, Sensors, Clouds, Big data, and data with business. It is the combination of traditional embedded systems combined with small wireless micro sensors, control systems with automation, and others that makes a huge infrastructure. The integration of wireless communication, micro electro mechanical devices, and Internet has led to the development of new things in the Internet. It is a network of network objects that can be accessed through the Internet and every object can be identified by unique identifier. By replacing IPV4, IPV6 plays a key role and provides a huge increase of address spaces for the development of things in the Internet. The objective of IoT application is to make the things smart without the human intervention. With the increasing number of smart nodes and amount of data that generated by each node is expected to create new concerns about data privacy, data scalability, data security, data manageability and many more issues that have been discussed in this chapter.

Techniques to Enhance the Lifetime of MANET

Now-a-days more and more devices are getting portable. This has encouraged the development of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET). In addition to device portability, MANET does not require a pre-established network infrastructure. As a result they can be easily deployed in situations like emergency rescue and disaster management. However, there are certain issues that are inherent to MANET such as hidden and exposed terminal problem, limited bandwidth, limited processing and battery power. These issues need to be addressed for successful deployment of MANET. Nodes in MANET are run by battery power. Sometimes, it is difficult to replace and/or re-charge the battery. Therefore, to increase the longevity of the network, the available battery power must be judiciously used. In this chapter we focus on different techniques proposed by various researchers to enhance the lifetime of MANET. Along with the same we also give our own contributions as to maximize network lifetime with the effect use of battery source.

Spectral Efficiency in Wireless Networks through MIMO-OFDM System

The traffic in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is brusty in nature; when any incident takes place, the data load on the channel increases suddenly demanding large channel spectrum. The scarcity of spectrum is the major technical obstacle for high data rate transmission along with better quality of service in any kind of wireless network. Hence it is very essential to enhance the spectrum efficiency of wireless channel. The major technical advancement in the physical layer which brings feasibility of broadband data transmission without increasing the transmission bandwidth or transmitting power are implementation of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) communication system with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) as modulation schemes. This chapter includes the fundamental concept of MIMO-OFDM system along with the channel estimation methods and the spectrum utilization issues therein.

Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks with Mobile Devices

Mesh communications is emerging as a popular networking solution. Mesh networks have a decentralized and multihop design. These characteristics arouse interest for the research of the following features: cooperation, task distribution, scalability and communication with limited infrastructure support. This chapter studies relevant solutions in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) with a mesh design that is used with mobile devices. The use of mobile devices on WSNs has recently grown due to: hardware evolution, large number of embedded sensors and daily high utilization of handheld devices. Consequently, novel requisites in the design and implementation of WSNs urge to be satisfied: autonomy of sensors battery and, efficient data exchange amongst sensors and the Internet. A real mesh testbed with two Layer 2 mesh solutions (Open802.11s and B.A.T.M.A.N) was implemented with different topologies. Some relevant results for a mesh network are discussed in terms of its scalability, performance and volatility.

Multi-Sensor Data Fusion (MSDF)

The Data Fusion Model maintained by the JDL (Joint Directors of Laboratories) Data Fusion Group is the most widely-used method for categorizing data fusion-related functions. This paper discusses the current effort to revise and expand this model to facilitate the cost-effective development, acquisition, integration and operation of multi-sensor/multi-source systems. Data fusion involves combining information in the broadest sense to estimate or predict the state of some aspect of the universe. These may be represented in terms of attributive and relational states. If the job is to estimate the state of a people (or any other sentient beings), it can be useful to include consideration of informational and perceptual states in addition to the physical state. Developing cost-effective multi-source information systems requires a standard method for specifying data fusion processing and control functions, interfaces, and associated data bases. The lack of common engineering standards for data fusion systems has been a major impediment to integration and re-use of available technology. There is a general lack of standardized or even well-documented performance evaluation, system engineering methodologies, architecture paradigms, or multi-spectral models of targets and collection systems. In short, current developments do not lend themselves to objective evaluation, comparison or re-use. This paper reports on proposed revisions and expansions of the JDL Data Fusion model to remedy some of these deficiencies. This involves broadening the functional model and related taxonomy beyond the original military focus, and integrating the Data Fusion Tree Architecture model for system description, design and development.