Levente Buttyan received the MSc degree in Computer Science from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2002. In 2003, he joined the Department of Telecommunications at BME, where he currently holds a position as an Associate Professor and works in the Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security (CrySyS). His research interests are in the design and analysis of security protocols and privacy enhancing mechanisms for wireless networked embedded systems, including wireless sensor networks, vehicular communications, RFID systems, wireless mesh networks, and opportunistic ad hoc networks. Levente Buttyan has numerous peer-reviewed publications in the field of security and privacy in wireless embedded systems. He also served on the Technical Program Committee of several conferences and workshops in this field. He was a steering committee member of ESAS (European Workshop on Security and Privacy in Ad hoc and Sensor Networks), and he was co-chair of the TPC of ESAS in 2006. Currently, he is a Steering Committee member of ACM WiSec (ACM Conference on Wireless Security).
Webpage: http://www.hit.bme.hu/~buttyan/
Security in wireless sensor and mesh networks
Abstract:We have entered the era of wireless networks. By now, the number of wireless phones has superseded that of wired ones. Wireless LANs are routinely used by millions of nomadic users and various wireless devices have become commonplace. Moreover, technologists promise us a world of ubiquitous computing, in which myriads of tiny, untethered sensors and actuators will communicate with each other, promptly taking care of our various needs and wishes.
In addition to this pervasiveness, we are witnessing a change of paradigm: initially, wireless devices had limited or no programmability and were managed (and secured) in a highly centralized fashion. Today, high-tier wireless end-systems are full-fledged computers and take an increasingly active role in the networking mechanisms. In the extreme case of multi-hop ad hoc networks, the end systems are the network.
Unfortunately, this evolution is creating new vulnerabilities. Even existing wireless networks (and especially wireless LANs) exhibit a number of security weaknesses, some of which have been painstakingly fixed a posteriori. It is now clear that the security solutions devised for wired networks cannot be used as such to protect the wireless ones. An additional problem is that the frenzy to commercialize quickly new products and new services is in contradiction with the design of a well-thought (and possibly standardized) security architecture.
In this lecture, we will give an overview of the security problems and challenges arising in wireless sensor and mesh networks, and we will present a selected set of security solutions specific to these kinds of wireless networks.
Related material:
Book entitled Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks
available on-line at: http://secowinet.epfl.ch
