The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is considered an enhancement of existing vehicular ad-hoc networks, which helps connect mobile vehicles to the Internet of Things (IoT) with the support of 5G networks. To assure the quality-of-service demand by the users, the edge computing paradigm of 5G networks can be incorporated in the IoV environment for supporting compute-intensive applications. The basic safety messages are typically transmitted using a multicast pattern in the IoV-enabled edge computing paradigm. The use of the multicast channel may accelerate the communication process; however, it is prone to various attacks due to the open nature of wireless networks. This article proposes a multimessage and multireceiver signcryption scheme for the multicast channel in a certificateless setting to solve the key escrow problem. The security of the partial private key is dependent on the secure channel, which increases the complexities of the system. Therefore, in the proposed scheme, we introduce a new idea that does not require a secure channel. The key generation center only sends the pseudo partial private key of the users on a public channel. Furthermore, the proposed scheme is based on hyper-elliptic curve cryptography (HECC), which has much smaller key sizes as compared to elliptic curve cryptography (ECC). The security proofs and performance comparison for our scheme are carried out. The findings show that the proposed scheme provides high security while using less computational and communication costs.

Biosensor is a means to transmit some physical phenomena, like body temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), and blood pressure. Such transmission is performed via Wireless Medical Sensor Network (WMSN) while diagnosing patients remotely through Internet-of-Medical-Things (IoMT). The sensitive data transmitted through WMSN from IoMT over an insecure channel is vulnerable to several threats and needs proper attention to be secured from adversaries. In contrast to addressing the security of all associated entities involving patient monitoring in the healthcare system or ensuring the integrity, authorization, and nonrepudiation of information over the communication line, no one can guarantee its security without a robust authentication protocol. Therefore, we have proposed a lightweight and robust authentication scheme for the network-enabled healthcare devices (IoMT) that mitigate all the identified weaknesses posed in the recent literature. The proposed protocol’s security has been analyzed formally using BAN logic and ProVerif2.02 and informally using pragmatic illustration. Simultaneously, at the end of the paper, the performance analysis result shows a delicate balance of security with performance that is often missing in the current protocols.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is a new type of Internet of Things (IoT), which enables sensors to merge with several smart devices to monitor machine status, environment, and collect data from industrial devices. On the other hand, cloud computing provides a good platform for storing crowdsourced data of IIoT. Due to the semi-trusted nature of cloud computing and communication through open channels, the IIoT environment needs security services such as confidentiality and authenticity. One such solution is provided by the identity-based signcryption. Unfortunately, the identity-based signcryption approach suffers from the key escrow problem. Certificateless signcryption is the alternative of identity-based signcryption that can resolve the key escrow problem. Here, we propose a lightweight certificateless signcryption approach for crowdsourced IIoT applications with the intention of enhancing security and decreasing the computational cost and communication overhead. The security and efficiency of the proposed approach are based on the hyper elliptic curve cryptosystem. The hyper elliptic curve is the advance version of the elliptic curve having small parameters and key size of 80 bits as compared to the elliptic curve which has 160-bits key size. Further, we validate the security requirements of our approach through automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications (AVISPA) tool with the help of high level protocol specification language (HLPSL). Moreover, our lightweight and secured scheme will attract low resource devices and will become a perk in the environment of IIoT.

Rivest, Shamir, & Adleman (RSA), bilinear pairing, and elliptic curve are well-known techniques/algorithms for security protocols. These techniques suffer from higher computation and communication costs due to increased sizes of parameters, public keys, and certificates. Hyper-elliptic curve has lower parameter size, public key size, and certificate size. The aim of the proposed work is to reduce the computational cost and communication cost. Furthermore, we validate the security properties of our proposed scheme by using the well-known simulation tool called automated validation of Internet security protocols and applications. Our approach ensures security properties such as resistance against replay attack, confidentiality, authenticity, unforgeability, integrity, non-repudiation, public verifiability, and forward secrecy.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan is amongst the top ten onion-producing countries in the world. Though in Pakistan, most of the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa produce onions, Malakand division lonely contributes 60% of the total onion production of the country. In onion farming, bolting is an insidious phenomenon that occurs in onion plants due to fluctuations in environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and light intensity. Due to bolting, the flowering stem of an onion plant is produced before the crop is harvested, resulting in a poor-quality harvest and yield. Therefore, from a farmer’s perspective, it is highly desirable to monitor and control the environmental factors to avoid bolting. In this paper, we propose and design a new prototype, namely, a smart farming monitoring system (SFMS) for bolting reduction, which is based on the generic three-layered IoT architecture. By using IoT (Internet of things) technology and careful remote monitoring, a more favorable environment can be provided to reduce and avoid onion bolting. To analyze the efficacy and performance of the proposed SFMS, a real test-bed implementation was carried out. The SFMS prototype was installed both in the open and in a greenhouse environment to monitor onion crops. Based on the data received via sensors, the percentage of onion bolting was recorded as 16.7% in the open environment while 3% in the closed environment. In the closed environment, optimal temperature, humidity, and light intensity were provided to the onion crops using the SFMS. For this reason, the percentage of onion bolting was reduced from 16.7% to 3%, consequently yielding better onion production. Moreover, the SFMS is a low-cost, easy-to-install solution that is developed with locally available hardware and resources, and we believe that this new solution can transform conventional onion farming into a more productive and convenient smart farming in the region.