Artificial Intelligence-Driven Composition and Security Validation of an Internet of Things Ecosystem

• Main Authors: George Hatzivasilis, Nikos Papadakis, Ilias Hatzakis, Sotiris Ioannidis, George Vardakis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-07-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: dependability; dynamic system composition; event calculus; Internet-of-Things; IoT; JADE
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/14/4862

Key challenges in Internet-of-Things (IoT) system design and management include the secure system composition and the calculation of the security and dependability level of the final system. This paper presents an event-based model-checking framework for IoT systems’ design and management, called CompoSecReasoner. It invokes two main functionalities: (i) system composition verification, and (ii) derivation and validation of security, privacy, and dependability (SPD) metrics. To measure the SPD values of a system, we disassemble two well-known types of security metrics—the attack surface methodologies and the medieval castle approach. The first method determines the attackable points of the system, while the second one defines the protection level that is provided by the currently composed system-of-systems. We extend these techniques and apply the Event Calculus method for modelling the dynamic behavior of a system with progress in time. At first, the protection level of the currently composed system is calculated. When composition events occur, the current system status is derived. Thereafter, we can deploy reactive strategies and administrate the system automatically at runtime, implementing a novel setting for Moving Target Defenses. We demonstrate the overall solution on a real ambient intelligence application for managing the embedded devices of two emulated smart buildings.