Authentication and authorization are two of the most important security features for mobile transaction systems. Most commonly, these schemes depend on three factors: what you know (secret), what you have (token), and what you are (biometrics). In this paper, we propose a location-based authentication and authorization scheme for mobile transactions using smart phones. The paper first describes the distinguished features and the architecture of our proposed solution. Second, the core of our design, including three parts: location registration, authentication and authorization as well as location verification, are described.

The availability of secure, efficient, and reliable communication systems is critical for the successful deployment and operations of new power systems such as microgrids. These systems provide a platform for implementing intelligent and autonomous algorithms that improve the power control process. However, building a secure communication system for microgrid purposes that is also efficient and reliable remains a challenge. Conventional security mechanisms introduce extra processing steps that affect performance by increasing the latency of microgrid communication beyond acceptable limits. They also do not scale well and can impact the reliability of power operations as the size of a microgrid grows. This paper proposes a low latency secure communication architecture for control operations in an islanded IoT-based microgrid that solves these problems. The architecture provides a secure platform that optimises the standard CoAP/DTLS implementation to reduce communication latency. It also introduces a traffic scheduler component that uses a fixed priority preemptive algorithm to ensure reliability as the microgrid scales up. The architecture is implemented on a lab-scale IoT-based microgrid prototype to test for performance and security. Results show that the proposed architecture can mitigate the main security threats and provide security services necessary for power control operations with minimal latency performance. Compared to other implementations using existing secure IoT protocols, our secure architecture was the only one to satisfy and maintain the recommended latency requirements for power control operations, i.e., 100 ms under all conditions.

Over the last decade, there has been a remarkable increase in the adoption and use of learning management systems (LMS) in sub-Saharan Africa in a bid to improve the quality of on-campus delivery as well as increasing access to education through blended and distance learning. Despite the increased adoption of LMS in the region, their potential has not been fully exploited as relatively few users tend to use them, thereby not justifying the high infrastructure investment costs. The continued penetration and adoption of mobile phones amongst users in the region presents an opportunity to find ways of making LMS accessible to users via mobile phones. However, there are relatively few attempts to enhance accessibility and usage of LMS into users' mobile phones especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This article aims at sharing experiences of configuring and using Mobile Moodle to enhance Moodle LMS usage and accessibility via mobile phones at the University of Dar es Salaam. Through analyzing log of two selected courses, it was revealed that the majority of students used Course View and User List features to read course notes and to check for their fellow students respectively. In addition, students indicated that the Mobile Moodle was easy to use and enable them to accomplish learning activities more quickly through a questionnaire that was distributed to elicit their opinions about the Mobile Moodle. The findings from this study will enable those who are involved in LMS implementation especially in sub-Saharan Africa to widen access of LMS via mobile phones and therefore increase LMS usage.

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, cybercriminals are targeting critical infrastructures such as traffic light systems and smart grids. A major concern is the security of such systems, which can be broken down into a number of categories, such as the authentication of data collection devices, secure data transmission, and use of the data by authorized and authenticated parties. The majority of research studies in the literature have largely focused on data integrity and user authentication. So far, no published work has addressed the security of a traffic light system from data collection to data access. Furthermore, it is evident that the conventional cloud computing architecture is incapable of analyzing and managing the massive amount of generated data. As a result, the fog computing paradigm combined with blockchain technology may be the best way to ensure data privacy in a decentralized manner while reducing overheads, latency, and maintaining security. This paper presents a blockchain-based authentication scheme named VDAS using the fog computing paradigm. The formal and informal verifications of the proposed solution are presented. The evaluation of the proposed scheme VDAS showed that it has low communication and computation costs compared to existing lightweight authentication techniques.

The smart grid is a new paradigm that aims to modernize the legacy power grid. It is based on the integration of ICT technologies, embedded system, sensors, renewable energy and advanced algorithms for management and optimization. The smart grid is a system of systems in which communication technology plays a vital role. Safe operations of the smart grid need a careful design of the communication protocols, cryptographic schemes, and computing technology. In this article, the authors describe current communication technologies, recently proposed algorithms, protocols, and architectures for securing smart grid communication network. They analyzed in a unifying approach the three principles pillars of smart-gird: Sensors, communication technologies, and security. Finally, the authors elaborate open issues in the smart-grid communication network