Enhancing Security and Privacy of Next-Generation Edge Computing Technologies

Abstract

The advent of high performance fog and edge computing and high bandwidth connectivity has brought about changes to Internet-of-Things (IoT) service architectures, allowing for greater quantities of high quality information to be extracted from their environments to be processed. However, recently introduced international regulations, along with heightened awareness among consumers, have strengthened requirements to ensure data security, with significant financial and reputational penalties for organisations who fail to protect customers' data. This paper proposes the leveraging of fog and edge computing to facilitate processing of confidential user data, to reduce the quantity and availability of raw confidential data at various levels of the IoT architecture. This ultimately reduces attack surface area, however it also increases efficiency of the architecture by distributing processing amongst nodes and transmitting only processed data. However, such an approach is vulnerable to device level attacks. To approach this issue, a proposed System Security Manager is used to continuously monitor system resources and ensure confidential data is confined only to parts of the device that require it. In event of an attack, critical data can be isolated and the system informed, to prevent data confidentiality breach.

Evolution of Embedded Platform Security Technologies: Past, Present & Future Challenges

“…Examples include Arm TrustZone, Intel SGX, Hex-Five MultiZone Security etc. The mass deployment and adoption of mobile and edge computing fuelled data-driven value business models [4], [11], [12]. This tremendously increased the threat landscape and by increasing the attack surface of these platforms [6], [7].…”

“…The reliance on intelligent computing technologies has grown opportunities for adversaries to conduct malicious activities, steal valuable data, launch attacks and compromise public and private digital services [1], [2], [3], [4]. The international government agencies have released cybersecurity regulations [5] to manage such challenges by advocating businesses and technology manufacturers to comply and adhere to these regulations.…”

“…The international government agencies have released cybersecurity regulations [5] to manage such challenges by advocating businesses and technology manufacturers to comply and adhere to these regulations. This need for compliance has triggered a chain reaction among service providers, original equipment manufacturers and embedded platform manufacturers and posed them to design, develop and integrate platform defence mechanisms [4], [6], [7]. These defence mechanisms can facilitate designing detect, respond and recover functions in case of malicious activity, software malfunction or adversarial attack [3], [4], [8], [9].…”

“…This need for compliance has triggered a chain reaction among service providers, original equipment manufacturers and embedded platform manufacturers and posed them to design, develop and integrate platform defence mechanisms [4], [6], [7]. These defence mechanisms can facilitate designing detect, respond and recover functions in case of malicious activity, software malfunction or adversarial attack [3], [4], [8], [9]. Since such incidents cause severe damage to the business reputation and safety of their users, the need for strong and robust platform security has become an obligatory design and operational security requirement for nextgeneration intelligent embedded technologies [3], [2], [10].…”

“…In past, the computing technologies have witnessed shifts between centralised and decentralised control (from mainframes to PCs) to an important wave of centralisation by moving control, data and intelligence of the computing system back to the cloud [11]. This trend has followed by another wave of decentralised in the form of edge computing [4]. These technological advancements have guided the evolution of both new computing paradigms, threats, attacks vectors and security architectures to meet the diverse security requirements [12], [13].…”