| NSF Org: |
CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 12, 2019 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 24, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 1932480 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Phillip Regalia
pregalia@nsf.gov (703)292-2981 CNS Division Of Computer and Network Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2019 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2024 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $249,866.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $265,866.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2020 = $16,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
438 WHITNEY RD EXTENSION UNIT 1133 STORRS CT US 06269-9018 (860)486-3622 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
371 Fairfield Way, Unit 4155 Storrs CT US 06269-4155 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | CPS-Cyber-Physical Systems |
| Primary Program Source: |
01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems are used in a wide range of mission- and safety-critical applications, thus imposing stringent requirements on the security of the underlying communication infrastructure. An IIoT network consists of multiple communication parties and follows a two-way communication model, including delivering sensing data on the uplink and transmitting control messages on the downlink. Tampered sensing data or control messages by outside attackers will result in wrong decisions, potentially causing significant harm. The recent trend in industrial automation to connect interdependent industrial plants together to provide decentralized, verifiable and immutable services further exacerbates the problem. This project aims to design 1) efficient signature schemes to support verifiable authenticity, integrity, and uniformity for intra-plant two-way communications, and 2) hierarchical and scalable blockchain protocols to support inter-plant immutable services. The close collaboration of the research teams will lead to a publicly available IIoT-enabled advanced manufacturing testbed, effective dissemination of research results among practitioners, and initiation of technology transfer.
To address existing limitations, the proposed secure communication framework aims to (i) ensure authenticity, integrity, and uniformity of sensing data in IIoT networks by designing novel signature schemes that are fast and efficient for both the signer and the verifier; (ii) enable public-key cryptography (PKC)-based fast control message authentication by extending the control border of IIoT networks to the cloud/Internet and solving the new security challenges; and (iii) provide inter-plant immutable services by developing a hierarchical blockchain structure and scalable lightweight consensus protocols. The proposed solutions will be implemented and deployed on a unique IIoT-enabled advanced manufacturing system testbed for thorough design validation and performance evaluation. Successful design, implementation and demonstration of the proposed security solutions should advance the adoption of IIoT network infrastructure, accelerate the transformation of legacy security architectures to PKC-based security architectures and lift the security protection of the industrial communication infrastructure to the next level.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This research designed novel public key authentication and data authentication schemes that are fast and efficient for both the signer and the verifier to ensure authenticity, integrity, and uniformity of sensing data in IIoT networks; 2) enable PKC-based fast control message authentication by extending the control border of IIoT networks to the cloud/Internet and solving the new security challenges; and 3) develop a hierarchical blockchain structure and scalable lightweight consensus protocol to provide inter-plant immutable services.
The outcomes of this project include:
1. We completed a novel hierarchical blockchain system design for industrial control systems and evaluated its performance using real-world use cases.
2. We developed a robust and efficient secure over-the-air (OTA) firmware update protocol for large-scale resource-constrained wireless networks.
3. We conducted a comprehensive security analysis on the industrial wireless networks in a layer-by-layer fashion to identify the vulnerability and potential attacks.
4. We completed several survey articles on time-sensitive networking (TSN) technologies and IIoT testbed design for industrial connectivity research.
5. We designed and implemented a system for Lightweight Oblivious IoT Services called LOIS, which achieves the requirements of protecting packet headers and user privacy.
We published a number of journal and conference papers in highly selective venues including IEEE RTSS, IEEE RTAS, ACM AFT, ACM/IEEE IoTDI and ACM Computing Surveys. Two PhD students and one postdoctoral fellow have been partially supported by this project. Both PhD students have successfully graduated. The postdoc fellow has also completed the training and is now working as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Iowa. One REU student was also supported by this project.
The PI developed a graduate-level course named “Architecture of Internet of Things” that is closely related to this project. The hardware testbed and software tools developed in this project have been extensively used in course projects to enable the students to develop new IIoT systems and address security issues of emerging industrial applications.
Last Modified: 01/19/2025
Modified by: Song Han
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