Research Outputs

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 14
  • Publication
    Towards a Security Baseline for IaaS-Cloud Back-Ends in Industry 4.0
    The popularity of cloud based Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) solutions is becoming increasingly popular. However, since IaaS providers and customers interact in a flexible and scalable environment, security remains a serious concern. To handle such security issues, defining a set of security parameters in the service level agreements (SLA) between both, IaaS provider and customer, is of utmost importance. In this paper, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) guidelines are evaluated to extract a set of security parameters for IaaS. Furthermore, the level of applicability and implementation of this set is used to assess popular industrial and open-source IaaS cloud platforms, respectively VMware and OpenStack. Both platforms provide private clouds, used as backend infrastructures in Industry 4.0 application scenarios. The results serve as initial work to identify a security baseline and research needs for creating secure cloud environments for Industry 4.0.
      171Scopus© Citations 5
  • Publication
    Function-as-a-Service Benchmarking Framework
    Cloud Service Providers deliver their products in form of ”as-a-Service”, which are typically categorized by the level of abstraction. This approach hides the implementation details and shows only functionality to the user. However, the problem is that it is hard to measure the performance of Cloud services, because they behave like black boxes. Especially with Function-as-a-Service it is even more difficult because it completely hides server and infrastructure management from users by design. Cloud Service Prodivers usually restrict the maximum size of code, memory and runtime of Cloud Functions. Nevertheless, users need clarification if more ressources are needed to deliver services in high quality. In this regard, we present the architectural design of a new Function-as-a-Service benchmarking tool, which allows users to evaluate the performance of Cloud Functions. Furthermore, the capabilities of the framework are tested on an isolated platform with a specific workload. The results show that users are able to get insights into Function-as-a-Service environments. This, in turn, allows users to identify factors which may slow down or speed up the performance of Cloud Functions.
      509  1Scopus© Citations 1
  • Publication
    Towards a Security-Aware Benchmarking Framework for Function-as-a-Service
    In a world, where complexity increases on a daily basis the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) cloud model seams to take countermeasures. In comparison to other cloud models, the fast evolving FaaS increasingly abstracts the underlying infrastructure and refocuses on the application logic. This trend brings huge benefits in application and performance, but comes with difficulties for benchmarking cloud applications. In this position paper, we present an initial investigation of benchmarking FaaS in close to reality production systems. Furthermore, we outline the architectural design including the necessary benchmarking metrics. We also discuss the possibility of using the proposed framework for identifying security vulnerabilities.
      229  1Scopus© Citations 3
  • Publication
    Automated and Secure Onboarding for System of Systems
    (IEEE, 2021-08-03) ; ; ; ;
    Péceli, Bálint 
    ;
    Singler, Gábor 
    ;
    Kovács, Kristóf 
    ;
    ;
    Delsing, Jerker 
    The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly changing the number of connected devices and the way they interact with each other. This increases the need for an automated and secure onboarding procedure for IoT devices, systems and services. Device manufacturers are entering the market with internet connected devices, ranging from small sensors to production devices, which are subject of security threats specific to IoT. The onboarding procedure is required to introduce a new device in a System of Systems (SoS) without compromising the already onboarded devices and the underlying infrastructure. Onboarding is the process of providing access to the network and registering the components for the first time in an IoT/SoS framework, thus creating a chain of trust from the hardware device to its hosted software systems and their provided services. The large number and diversity of device hardware, software systems and running services raises the challenge to establish a generic onboarding procedure. In this paper, we present an automated and secure onboarding procedure for SoS. We have implemented the onboarding procedure in the Eclipse Arrowhead framework. However, it can be easily adapted for other IoT/SoS frameworks that are based on Service-oriented Architecture (SoA) principles. The automated onboarding procedure ensures a secure and trusted communication between the new IoT devices and the Eclipse Arrowhead framework. We show its application in a smart charging use case and perform a security assessment.
      154  1Scopus© Citations 7
  • Publication
    On the Cost of Security Compliance in Information Systems
    (International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, 2019) ; ; ;
    Aldrian, Andreas 
    ;
    The onward development of information and communication technology has led to a new industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. This revolution involves Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS), which consist of intelligent Cyber-Physical Systems that may be able to adapt themselves autonomously in a production environment. At the moment, machines in industrial environments are often not connected to the internet, which thus needs a point-to-point connection to access the device if necessary. Through Industry 4.0, these devices should enable remote access for smart maintenance through a connection to the outside world. However, this connection opens the gate for possible cyber-attacks and thus raises the question about providing security for these environments. Therefore, this paper used an adapted approach based on SixSigma to solve this security problem by investigating security standards. Security requirements were gathered and mapped to controls from well known security standards, formed into a catalog. This catalog includes assessment information to check how secure a solution for a use case is and also includes a link to an estimation method for implementation cost. Thus this paper’s outcome shows how to make Industry 4.0 use cases secure by fulfilling security standard controls and how to estimate the resulting implementation costs.
      571  2927
  • Publication
    Towards Comparing Programming Paradigms
    (2017-12) ; ;
    Wöhrer, Alexander 
    Rapid technological progress in computer sciences finds solutions and at the same time creates ever more complex requirements. Due to an evolving complexity today’s programming languages provide powerful frameworks which offer standard solutions for recurring tasks to assist the programmer and to avoid the re-invention of the wheel with so- called “out-of-the-box-features”. In this paper, we propose a way of comparing different programming paradigms on a theoretical, technical and practical level. Furthermore, the paper presents the results of an initial comparison of two representative programming approaches, both in the closed SAP environment.
      141  393Scopus© Citations 1
  • Publication
    A Framework for Measuring the Costs of Security at Runtime
    (SCITEPRESS, 2019) ; ; ;
    Mauthe, Andreas 
    ;
    In Industry 4.0, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are formed by components, which are interconnected with each other over the Internet of Things (IoT). The resulting capabilities of sensing and affecting the physical world offer a vast range of opportunities, yet, at the same time pose new security challenges. To address these challenges there are various IoT Frameworks, which offer solutions for managing and controlling IoT-components and their interactions. In this regard, providing security for an interaction usually requires performing additional security-related tasks (e.g. authorisation, encryption, etc.) to prevent possible security risks. Research currently focuses more on designing and developing these frameworks and does not satisfactorily provide methodologies for evaluating the resulting costs of providing security. In this paper we propose an initial approach for measuring the resulting costs of providing security for interacting IoT-components by using a Security Cost Modell ing Framework. Furthermore, we describe the necessary building blocks of the framework and provide an experimental design showing how it could be used to measure security costs at runtime.
      537  1Scopus© Citations 2
  • Publication
    Analysing Design Approaches for the Power Consumption in Cyber-Physical Systems
    (IEEE, 2021-06-30) ; ; ;
    Mauthe, Andreas 
    ;
    Gouglidis, Antonios 
    The importance of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT) applications is constantly increasing, especially in the context of Industry 4.0. Architectural decisions are crucial not just for performance, security and resilience reasons but also regarding costs and resource usage. In this paper we analyse two of the fundamental approaches to design control loops (i.e. time-driven and event-driven), show how they can be realised and evaluate their power requirements. Through this the design criteria can be extended also considering the optimization of energy related aspects.
      156  1
  • Publication
    A Security Evaluation Framework for Software-Defined Network Architectures in Data Center Environments
    (2023) ;
    Thiede, Dominik
    ;
    Race, Nicholas
    ;
    Broadbent, Matthew
    ;
    Gouglidis, Antonios
    Data Center (DC) network requirements. Virtualisation is one of the key drivers of that transformation and enables a massive deployment of computing resources, which exhausts server capacity limits. Furthermore, the increased network endpoints need to be handled dynamically and centrally to facilitate cloud computing functionalities. Traditional DCs barely satisfy those demands because of their inherent limitations based on the network topology. Software-Defined Networks (SDN) promise to meet the increasing network requirements for cloud applications by decoupling control functionalities from data forwarding. Although SDN solutions add more flexibility to DC networks, they also pose new vulnerabilities with a high impact due to the centralised architecture. In this paper we propose an evaluation framework for assessing the security level of SDN architectures in four different stages. Furthermore, we show in an experimental study, how the framework can be used for mapping SDN threats with associated vulnerabilities and necessary mitigations in conjunction with risk and impact classification. The proposed framework helps administrators to evaluate the network security level, to apply countermeasures for identified SDN threats, and to meet the networks security requirements.
      20  2