ABSTRACT
The IoT is starting to gain popularity. Through linking all possible things to the internet, from cameras and phones to fridges to wind turbines, people are finding new ways to use IoT in order to improve the quality of life.
The Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) was initially designed as a closed network as a very common concept for the tracking of physical data and environmental conditions. The ambient information was gathered via sensor nodes and sent via a gateway to a remote place. In such a layout, there are no direct links between the end-users and the sensor nodes. Both signals are sent through the gateway between nodes and the outside world. For example, the use of sensors for the detection of enemy attacks on the field was inspired by military applications. The IoT is an extension of WSN, an expansion of the traditional model of the internet in which the digital world reaches the physical world.
Nevertheless, IoT is opening up a completely new aspect to security threats. Indeed, IoT provides compatibility for both forms of communication: human-to-machine and machine-to-machine. All are expected to be fitted with small, embedded devices that can connect to the internet in the near future. This skill is beneficial in many areas of our everyday lives: from building automation, smart cities, and monitoring systems to all portable smart devices. However, the more IoT applications are deployed, the greater the risk to our information system.
Nonetheless, the undenied number of IoT systems, due to limited infrastructure and lack of defense mechanisms, is vulnerable to security breaches, for example, denial of service and replay attacks. IoT systems have many security challenges to overcome in order to obtain the necessary security.
The paper describes a new method for encryption and decryption based on Deoxyribo-Nucleic Acid (DNA) structure, molecular characteristics, and biological functions in addition to Huffman compression.
Conceptually, the encryption approach is based on the transcription and translation cycle, which are the two biological operations for DNA replication and the DNA conversion into a protein. The DNA cryptographic algorithm is designed and implemented to be used essentially at the physical level but not at the molecular level. We have, in this paper, developed and implemented a cryptographic algorithm for key generation and message encryption. The generated keys are validated using cryptography standard tests which demonstrate their very good performances. To validate the proposed approach, we use Arduino MEGA Boards and NRF24L01 radiofrequency transceivers to build a WSN-based hardware platform. A Human-Machine Interface (HMI) based on IoT using Node-Red of IBM, hosted in a Raspberry Pi 3, is created to monitor the collected data or to control actuators of a specific remote place securely.
