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In the current 5th Generation (5G) networking paradigm, the enforcement of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is a non-trivial measure to ensure the scope and the quality of services and standards between tenants and service providers (SPs). On top of this, Secure Service Level Agreements (SSLA) are introduced to ensure that SPs deliver the most critical and required security-related standards defined in the contract, such as integrity, confidentiality, availability, non-repudiation, and privacy assurance. However, with the tendency for more distributed and multi-stakeholder networking architectures in next-generation networks, the management process of such SSLAs will be challenging due to the diversified security vulnerabilities and complexity of underlying technologies. Although blockchain is emerging as a platform to facilitate such distributed SSLA/SLA management frameworks, its currently available consensus mechanisms are more generic. Still, they need to improve in terms of applying in multi-stakeholder networks. Therefore, this paper presents a novel consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Monitoring (PoM) for a blockchain-based novel SSLA management framework. Moreover, we provide details about the prototype implementation of our proposed consensus algorithm and SSLA management framework. It is proven by comparing our proposal with the other existing solutions that our solution outperforms in many aspects, such as energy consumption, computation cost, and security features.

The latest 5G mobile networks have enabled many exciting Internet of Things (IoT) applications that employ unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs/drones). The success of most UAV-based IoT applications is heavily dependent on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, for instance, computer vision and path planning. These AI methods must process data and provide decisions while ensuring low latency and low energy consumption. However, the existing cloud-based AI paradigm finds it difficult to meet these strict UAV requirements. Edge AI, which runs AI on-device or on edge servers close to users, can be suitable for improving UAV-based IoT services. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of edge AI on key UAV technical aspects (i.e., autonomous navigation, formation control, power management, security and privacy, computer vision, and communication) and applications (i.e., delivery systems, civil infrastructure inspection, precision agriculture, search and rescue (SAR) operations, acting as aerial wireless base stations (BSs), and drone light shows). As guidance for researchers and practitioners, this article also explores UAV-based edge AI implementation challenges, lessons learned, and future research directions.

Several symmetric and asymmetric encryption based authentication protocols have been developed for the wireless local area networks (WLANs). However, recent findings reveal that these protocols are either vulnerable to numerous attacks or computationally expensive. Considering the demerits of these protocols and the necessity to provide enhanced security, a lightweight extensible authentication protocol based authentication protocol for WLAN-connected Internet of Things devices is presented. We conduct an informal and formal security analysis to ensure robustness against the attacks. Furthermore, the empirical performance analysis and comparison show that the proposed protocol outperforms its counterparts, reducing computational, communication, storage costs, and energy consumption by up to 99%, 80%, 91.8%, and 98%, respectively. Simulation results of the protocol using the NS3 and its overhead under unknown attacks demonstrate that the proposed protocol performs better in all scenarios. A prototype implementation of the protocol has also been tested to evaluate its feasibility in real-time applications.

Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is a novel edge computing paradigm that moves cloudbased processing and storage capabilities closer to mobile users by implementing server resources in the access nodes. MEC helps fulfill the stringent requirements of 5G and beyond networks to offer anytimeanywhere connectivity for many devices with ultra-low delay and huge bandwidths. Information-Centric Networking (ICN) is another prominent network technology that builds on a content-centric network architecture to overcome host-centric routing/operation shortcomings and to realize efficient pervasive and ubiquitous networking. It is envisaged to be employed in Future Internet including Beyond 5G (B5G) networks. The consolidation of ICN with MEC technology offers new opportunities to realize that vision and serve advanced use cases. However, various integration challenges are yet to be addressed to enable the wide-scale co-deployment of ICN with MEC in future networks. In this paper, we discuss and elaborate on ICN MEC integration to provide a comprehensive survey with a forward-looking perspective for B5G networks. In that regard, we deduce lessons learned from related works (for both 5G and B5G networks). We present ongoing standardization activities to highlight practical implications of such efforts. Moreover, we render key B5G use cases and highlight the role for ICN MEC integration for addressing their requirements. Finally, we layout research challenges and identify potential research directions. For this last contribution, we also provide a mapping of the latter to ICN integration challenges and use cases.

Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) is a cloud computing evolution that delivers end-user services at the mobile network’s edge. As a result, MEC guarantees that users will benefit from ultra-low latency and increased bandwidth when using the services. The orchestration process is the holistic management and control of the edge computing platforms. Handling of service requests forwarded by the MEC subscribers is an inceptive function that requires the intervention of the orchestrator. This paper demonstrates how an advanced service request handler algorithm (MEC-RHA) works on MEC orchestration, considering factors of service priority levels, feasibility, and resource availability when launching a service; while an optimal MEC server selection process is formed based on those factors.

Faced with the rapid increase in smart Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and the high demand for new business-oriented services in the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond network, the management of mobile networks is getting complex. Thus, traditional Network Management and Orchestration (MANO) approaches cannot keep up with rapidly evolving application requirements. This challenge has motivated the adoption of the Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM) concept to adapt the automation into network services management. By automating network and service management, ZSM offers efficiency to control network resources and enhance network performance visibility. The ultimate target of the ZSM concept is to enable an autonomous network system capable of self-configuration, self-monitoring, self-healing, and self-optimization based on service-level policies and rules without human intervention. Thus, the paper focuses on conducting a comprehensive survey of E2E ZSM architecture and solutions for 5G and beyond networks. The article begins by presenting the fundamental ZSM architecture and its essential components and interfaces. Then, a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art for key technical areas, i.e., ZSM automation, cross-domain E2E service lifecycle management, and security aspects, are presented. Furthermore, the paper contains a summary of recent standardization efforts and research projects towards the ZSM realization in 5G and beyond networks. Finally, several lessons learned from the literature and open research problems related to ZSM realization are also discussed in this paper.

Smart Grid 2.0 is envisaged to automate the operations of the intelligent electricity grid. Blockchain and smart contracts are integrated to facilitate the transformation from DSO-centric operations to consumer-oriented, distributed electricity grid management. The envisaged smart grids, integrated with blockchain would provoke challenges, which would hinder the maximum utilization of Distribute Energy Resources (DERs). This comprehensive review aims at analyzing the applicability of blockchain technology in Smart Grid 2.0, which would facilitate a seamless decentralization process. Further, the paper elaborates the blockchain-based applications of future smart grid operations and the role of blockchain in each scenario. The paper further provides a concise analysis on the blockchain integration challenges, thereby ensure secure and scalable, decentralized operations of future, autonomous electricity networks.

Emerging applications such as Internet of Everything, Holographic Telepresence, collaborative robots, and space and deep-sea tourism are already highlighting the limitations of existing fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. These limitations are in terms of data-rate, latency, reliability, availability, processing, connection density and global coverage, spanning over ground, underwater and space. The sixth-generation (6G) of mobile networks are expected to burgeon in the coming decade to address these limitations. The development of 6G vision, applications, technologies and standards has already become a popular research theme in academia and the industry. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the current developments towards 6G. We highlight the societal and technological trends that initiate the drive towards 6G. Emerging applications to realize the demands raised by 6G driving trends are discussed subsequently. We also elaborate the requirements that are necessary to realize the 6G applications. Then we present the key enabling technologies in detail. We also outline current research projects and activities including standardization efforts towards the development of 6G. Finally, we summarize lessons learned from state-of-the-art research and discuss technical challenges that would shed a new light on future research directions towards 6G.

The Augmented Reality (AR) technology enhances the human perception of the world by combining the real environment with the virtual space. With the explosive growth of powerful, less expensive mobile devices, and the emergence of sophisticated communication infrastructure, Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) applications are gaining increased popularity. MAR allows users to run AR applications on mobile devices with greater mobility and at a lower cost. The emerging 5G communication technologies act as critical enablers for future MAR applications to achieve ultra-low latency and extremely high data rates while Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) brings enhanced computational power closer to the users to complement MAR. This paper extensively discusses the landscape of MAR through the past and its future prospects with respect to the 5G systems and complementary technology MEC. The paper especially provides an informative analysis of the network formation of current and future MAR systems in terms of cloud, edge, localized, and hybrid architectural options. The paper discusses key application areas for MAR and their future with the advent of 5G technologies. The paper also discusses the requirements and limitations of MAR technical aspects such as communication, mobility management, energy management, service offloading and migration, security, and privacy and analyzes the role of 5G technologies.

The industrial and computing research context revolutionized in various directions during the last decades. The blockchain-based smart contract embraced as a significant research interest due to its distinguishing features such as decentralized storage of transactions, autonomous execution of contract codes, and decentralized establishment of the trust. Blockchain-based smart contracts can transform the working architecture of almost all industries towards elevated service standards. The use cases of blockchain based smart contracts range from industrial applications such as cryptocurrency systems towards logistics, agriculture, real estate, energy trading and so forth. The decentralization concept of blockchain is one of the biggest leaps in technology research since future computing got a super momentum towards the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing. A plethora of research is in progress to investigate the opportunities for the applicability of smart contracts and blockchain technologies to various industries. It is important to identify the technical aspects of blockchain-based smart contracts to further improve and sharpen the capabilities which they already owed. This survey is conducted to identify the significant technical aspects of blockchain-based smart contracts with the associated future research directions.

Sharing of students’ credentials is a necessary and integral process of an education ecosystem that comprises various stakeholders like students, schools, companies, professors and the governmental authorities. As of today, all these stakeholders have to put-in an enormous amount of efforts to ensure the authenticity and privacy of students’ credentials. Despite these efforts, the process of sharing students’ credentials is complex, error-prone and not completely secure. Our aim is to leverage blockchain technology to mitigate the existing security-related issues concerning the sharing of students’ credentials. Thus, the paper proposes a tamper-proof, immutable, authentic, non-repudiable, privacy protected and easy to share blockchain-based architecture for secured sharing of students’ credentials. To increase the scalability, the proposed system uses a secure off-chain storage mechanism. The performance and viability of the proposed architecture is analyzed by using an Ethereum based prototypical implementation. The test results imply that requests can be executed within few seconds (without block-time) and the system has stability to process up to 1000 simultaneous requests.

COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive impact on healthcare, social life, and economies on a global scale. Apparently, technology has a vital role to enable ubiquitous and accessible digital health services in pandemic conditions as well as against “re-emergence” of COVID-19 disease in a post-pandemic era. Accordingly, 5G systems and 5G-enabled e-health solutions are paramount. This paper highlights methodologies to effectively utilize 5G for e-health use cases and its role to enable relevant digital services. It also provides a comprehensive discussion of the implementation issues, possible remedies and future research directions for 5G to alleviate the health challenges related to COVID-19.

Remote patient monitoring is one of the cornerstones to enable Ambient Assisted Living. Here, a set of devices provide their corresponding input, which should be carefully aggregated and analysed to derive health-related conclusions. In the new Fifth-Generation (5G) networks, Internet of Things (IoT) devices communicate directly to the mobile network without any need of proxy devices. Moreover, 5G networks consist of Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) nodes, which are taking the role of a mini-cloud, able to provide sufficient computation and storage capacity at the edge of the network. MEC IoT integration in 5G offers a lot of benefits such as high availability, high scalability, low backhaul bandwidth costs, low latency, local awareness and additional security and privacy. In this paper, we first detail the procedure on how to establish such remote monitoring in 5G networks. Next, we focus on the key agreement between IoT, MEC and registration center in order to guarantee mutual authentication, anonymity, and unlinkability properties. Taking into account the high heterogeneity of IoT devices that can contribute to an accurate image of the health status of a patient, it is of utmost importance to design a very lightweight scheme that allows even the smallest devices to participate. The proposed protocol is symmetric key based and thus highly efficient. Moreover, it is shown that the required security features are established and protection against the most of the well-known attacks is guaranteed.

Blockchain is one of the disruptive technical innovation in the recent computing paradigm. Many applications already notoriously hard and complex are fortunate to ameliorate the service with the blessings of blockchain and smart contracts. The decentralized and autonomous execution with in-built transparency of blockchain based smart contracts revolutionize most of the applications with optimum and effective functionality. The paper explores the significant applications which already benefited from the smart contracts. We also highlight the future potential of the blockchain based smart contracts in these applications perspective.

While 5G is well-known for network cloudification with micro-service based architecture, the next generation networks or the 6G era is closely coupled with intelligent network orchestration and management. Hence, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is immense in the envisioned 6G paradigm. However, the alliance between 6G and AI may also be a double-edged sword in many cases as AI’s applicability for protecting or infringing security and privacy. In particular, the end-to-end automation of future networks demands proactive threats discovery, application of mitigation intelligent techniques and making sure the achievement of self-sustaining networks in 6G. Therefore, to consolidate and solidify the role of AI in securing 6G networks, this article presents how AI can be leveraged in 6G security, possible challenges and solutions.

Blockchain is an innovative technology which enabled new applications for solving numerous problems in distributed environments such as the internet of things (IoT) equipped food supply chains (FSCs). In FSCs, the large volume of IoT data such as audio, video, images, and sensor data will be transferred to ensure the traceability of the food to its source. When blockchain technology is used in an FSC, the storage requirements in the nodes will grow with time, since blockchain only allows information adding, without deleting the already stored information. Therefore, it is evident that offchain storage offers more flexibility than onchain storage in IoT equipped supply chains. This paper proposes a scalable storage scheme using offchain storage, where the data from IoT devices in the supply chain will store offchain. To reduce the growth of offchain storage, we exploit the fact that some information regarding a particular food item may not be required after the expiration date. The scalability of the proposed scheme is validated through numerical and experimental results.

The increase in capacity demand for vehicular communication is generating interest among researchers. The standard spectra allocated to VANET tend to be saturated and are no longer enough for real-time applications. Millimeter-wave is a potential candidate for VANET applications. However, millimeter-wave is susceptible to pathloss and fading, which degrade system performance. Beamforming, multi-input multi-output (MIMO) and diversity techniques are being employed to minimize throughput, reliability and data rate issues. This paper presents a tractable channel model for VANET in which system performance degradation due to error is addressed by concatenated Alamouti space-time block coding (ASTBC) and Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem (BCH) coding. Two closed-form approximations of bit error rate (BER), one for BCH in Rayleigh fading and the second for BCH with ASTBC, are derived. These expressions comprise SNR and code rate and can be utilized in designing VANET architectures. The results show that the BER using concatenated ASTBC and BCH outmatches the conventional BER ASTBC expression. The analytical results are compared with numerical results, thereby showing the accuracy of our closed-form expressions. The performance of the proposed expressions is evaluated using different code rates.

Virtual Private LAN services (VPLS) is a Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (L2VPN) service that has gained immense popularity due to a number of its features, such as protocol independence, multipoint-to-multipoint mesh connectivity, robust security, low operational cost (in terms of optimal resource utilization), and high scalability. In addition to the traditional VPLS architectures, novel VPLS solutions have been designed leveraging new emerging paradigms, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), to keep up with the increasing demand. These emerging solutions help in enhancing scalability, strengthening security, and optimizing resource utilization. This paper aims to conduct an in-depth survey of various VPLS architectures and highlight different characteristics through insightful comparisons. Moreover, the article discusses numerous technical aspects such as security, scalability, compatibility, tunnel management, operational issues, and complexity, along with the lessons learned. Finally, the paper outlines future research directions related to VPLS. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to furnish a detailed survey of VPLS.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a lucrative technology within the modern community that realizes the concept of the smart world, by expanding within a myriad of applications. Existing wireless networks require a radical change to fulfill the network requirements and cater the rapid expansion of the IoT ecosystem. 5G architecture is specifically designed to facilitate this demand. Network slicing is a pivotal technology in 5G architecture that has the ability to divide the physical network into multiple logical networks with specific network characteristics. In this paper, we are going to analyze how network slicing can be helpful in the IoT realization. Technical aspects that are required in the IoT realization, and the slicing based solutions which address these aspects, will be discussed here. Moreover, technical challenges that can arise due to network slicing integration in IoT ecosystem, will also be discussed with the potential solutions.

The mobile service platform envisaged by emerging IoT and 5G is guaranteeing gigabit-level bandwidth, ultra-low latency and ultra-high storage capacity for their subscribers. In spite of the variety of applications plausible with the envisaged technologies, security is a demanding objective that should be applied beyond the design stages. Thus, Security as a Service (SECaaS) is an initiative for a service model that enable mobile and IoT consumers with diverse security functions such as Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDPaaS), Authentication (AaaS), and Secure Transmission Channel (STCaaS) as a Service. A well-equipped edge computing infrastructure is intrinsic to achieve this goal. The emerging Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm standardized by the ETSI is excelling among other edge computing flavours due to its well-defined structure and protocols. Thus, in our directive, we intend to utilize MEC as the edge computing platform to launch the SECaaS functions. Though, the actual development of a MEC infrastructure is highly dependent on the integration of virtualization technologies to enable dynamic creation, the deployment, and the detachment of virtualized entities that should feature interoperability to cater the heterogeneous IoT devices and services. To that extent, this work is proposing a security service architecture that offers these SECaaS services. Further, we validate our proposed architecture through the development of a virtualized infrastructure that integrates lightweight and hypervisor-based virtualization technologies. Our experiments prove the plausibility of launching multiple security instances on the developed prototype edge platform.

Fog Computing is one of the edge computing paradigms that envisages being the proximate processing and storage infrastructure for a multitude of IoT appliances. With its dynamic deployability as a medium level cloud service, fog nodes are enabling heterogeneous service provisioning infrastructure that features scalability, interoperability, and adaptability. Out of the various 5G based services possible with the fog computing platforms, security services are imperative but minimally investigated direct live. Thus, in this research, we are focused on launching security services in a fog node with an architecture capable of provisioning on-demand service requests. As the fog nodes are constrained on resources, our intention is to integrate light-weight virtualization technology such as Docker for forming the service provisioning infrastructure. We managed to launch multiple security instances configured to be Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPSs) on the fog infrastructure emulated via a Raspberry Pi-4 device. This environment was tested with multiple network flows to validate its feasibility. In our proposed architecture, orchestration strategies performed by the security orchestrator were stated as guidelines for achieving pragmatic, dynamic orchestration with fog in IoT deployments. The results of this research guarantee the possibility of developing an ambient security service model that facilitates IoT devices with enhanced security.

Security has become the primary concern in many telecommunications industries today as risks can have high consequences. Especially, as the core and enable technologies will be associated with 5G network, the confidential information will move at all layers in future wireless systems. Several incidents revealed that the hazard encountered by an infected wireless network, not only affects the security and privacy concerns, but also impedes the complex dynamics of the communications ecosystem. Consequently, the complexity and strength of security attacks have increased in the recent past making the detection or prevention of sabotage a global challenge. From the security and privacy perspectives, this paper presents a comprehensive detail on the core and enabling technologies, which are used to build the 5G security model; network softwarization security, PHY (Physical) layer security and 5G privacy concerns, among others. Additionally, the paper includes discussion on security monitoring and management of 5G networks. This paper also evaluates the related security measures and standards of core 5G technologies by resorting to different standardization bodies and provide a brief overview of 5G standardization security forces. Furthermore, the key projects of international significance, in line with the security concerns of 5G and beyond are also presented. Finally, a future directions and open challenges section has included to encourage future research.

The paper aims to resolve security issues revolving around the sharing of students’ credentials by leveraging the blockchain technology. It proposes a novel blockchain-based architecture followed by its implementation as a decentralized application (DApp). Further, the cost & the performance analysis are carried out based on the experiments conducted.

The recent advances in mobile devices and wireless communication sector transformed Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) from science fiction to reality. Among the other MAR use cases, the incorporation of this MAR technology in the healthcare sector can elevate the quality of diagnosis and treatment for the patients. However, due to the highly sensitive nature of the data available in this process, it is also highly vulnerable to all types of security threats. In this paper, an edge-based secure architecture is presented for a MAR healthcare application. Based on the ESSMAR architecture, a secure key management scheme is proposed for both the registration and authentication phases. Then the security of the proposed scheme is validated using formal and informal verification methods.

Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G are emerging technologies that prompt a mobile service platform capable of provisioning billions of communication devices which enable ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence. These novel approaches are guaranteeing gigabit-level bandwidth, ultra-low latency and ultra-high storage capacity for their subscribers. To achieve these limitations, ETSI has introduced the paradigm of Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) for creating efficient data processing architecture extending the cloud computing capabilities in the Radio Access Network (RAN). Despite the gained enhancements to the mobile network, MEC is subjected to security challenges raised from the heterogeneity of IoT services, intricacies in integrating virtualization technologies, and maintaining the performance guarantees of the mobile networks (i.e. 5G). In this paper, we are identifying the probable threat vectors in a typical MEC deployment scenario that comply with the ETSI standards. We analyse the identified threat vectors and propose solutions to mitigate them.

The next mobile generation, 5G, is expected to bring an enormous amount of new services and increased user experience. However adequate protection mechanisms for data and user privacy are required as this new technology will play a crucial role in society by connecting vertical industries, such as smart-grids, e-health, finance, transport and manufacturing. In this paper, we identify the most important privacy issues caused by the new technologies planned to use in 5G. Then, we discuss the objectives for privacy protection in 5G and correlate the identified issues with these objectives. Finally, we highlight how these objectives can be met by both a regulatory and technological approach. To this end, several privacy preserving technological solutions are presented for 5G networks.

5G will provide broadband access everywhere, entertain higher user mobility, and enable connectivity of massive number of devices (e.g. Internet of Things (IoT)) in an ultrareliable and affordable way. The main technological enablers such as cloud computing, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are maturing towards their use in 5G. However, there are pressing security challenges in these technologies besides the growing concerns for user privacy. In this paper, we provide an overview of the security challenges in these technologies and the issues of privacy in 5G. Furthermore, we present security solutions to these challenges and future directions for secure 5G systems.

Currently, gadgets are the most common and frequent ways of acquiring digital services. However, due to recent advancements in smart sensing and communication technologies, it seems that, this trend might get change in coming days. Future is hinting us towards a gadget-free hyperconnected society, where each object can sense, gather and process the information and can be able to take context based decisions. The vision behind this novel concept is to provide users, digital services anywhere and anytime, without using explicit gadgets or even wearables. Smart surrounding will be able to provide digital services to users according to their requirements. Also with the addition of 5G technology, this vision will get more strengthen and thus novel services will come into action. This will generate massive amount of critical data and eventually dealing with privacy in such ambient and gadget-free environment will be one of the major concerns for users. Therefore, this paper presents privacy challenges from user’s perspectives, that can potentially arise in such gadget-free environment. An initial and tentative conceptual privacy framework is also discussed in the light of the user’s privacy issues. Furthermore, we provide an overview of transformation requirements needed in transition from the gadget to gadget-free world.

Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) is an Ethernet based VPN (Virtual Private Network) service which provides protocol independent and high speed multipoint-to-multipoint connectivity. In this article, we discuss the possibility to use emerging networks concepts such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to improve the performance, flexibility and adaptability of VPLS networks. SDN and NFV based VPLS (SoftVPLS) architectures offer new features such as centralized control, network programmability and abstraction to improve the performance, flexibility and automation of traffic, security and network management functions for future VPLS networks.