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Vehicle use and the concept of a "smart city" are developing quickly. As a result of this progression, the Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) is a popular network for inter-vehicular communication. The data gathering about the state of the road, the whereabouts of vehicles, their speeds, and the description of traffic congestion are obtained using the VANET. The public nature of information flow on the VANET creates serious security risks. Data security is typically one of the most important duties of VANET. As a result, it becomes one of the researchers’ top priorities. Li et al. [1] introduced a Lightweight Privacy Preserving Authentication Protocol for VANETs. They stated that several attacks could be resisted using their secure authentication devised protocol. However, after analyzing we discovered that their authentication protocol is susceptible to roadside impersonation attack and it does not provide vehicle anonymity. In the end, we have provided a few suggestions to cope with Li et al.’s devised protocol current shortcomings.

Vehicle ad-hoc networks (VANETs) have experienced rapid growth due to the advancement of cloud computing, IoT technologies, and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Vehicles are required to have enhanced storage capacity, onboard computing capabilities, improved sensing power, and communication systems. To address real-world demands like low latency, affordable storage, and mobility in VANET deployments, There have been efforts to integrate fog computing with VANETs in a practical implementation. "An Efficient and Provably Secure Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol for Fog-Based Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks" was proposed by Ma et al. (IEEE Internet of Things Journal, pp 8065–8075, 10.1109/JIOT.2019.2902840). According to their claims, the use of their secure authentication technique can help prevent security threats. However, after careful investigation, we discovered that their authentication protocol is susceptible to vehicle user impersonation attacks and also does not provide vehicle anonymity. In light of this, we have provided some recommendations to address the current flaws in the protocol developed by Ma et al. Copyright: © 2023 IEEE

DC-biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) has been introduced to visible light networking framework for connected vehicles (LiNEV) systems as a modulation and multiplexing scheme. This is to overcome the light-emitting diode (LED) bandwidth limitation, as well as to reduce the inter-symbol interference caused by the multipath road fading. Due to the implementation of the inverse fast Fourier transform, DC-OFDM suffers from its large peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), which degrades the performance in LiNEV systems, as the LEDs used in the vehicles’ headlights have a limited optical power-current linear range. To tackle this issue, discrete Fourier transform spread-optical pulse amplitude modulation (DFTS-OPAM) has been proposed as an alternative modulation scheme for LiNEV systems instead of DCO-OFDM. In this paper, we investigate the system performance of both schemes considering the light-emitting diode linear dynamic range and LED 3 dB modulation bandwidth limitations. The simulation results indicate that DCO-OFDM has a 9 dB higher PAPR value compared with DFTS-OPAM. Additionally, it is demonstrated that DCO-OFDM requires an LED with a linear range that is twice the one required by DFTS-OPAM for the same high quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) order. Furthermore, the findings illustrate that when the signal bandwidth of both schemes significantly exceeds the LED modulation bandwidth, DCO-OFDM outperforms DFTS-OPAM, as it requires a lower signal-to-noise ratio at a high QAM order.

Background: The UK Cyber Skills Gap stifles economic growth and amplifies the risk of cyber-attacks. The gap is known to be an issue for cyber-enabled practitioners – whose primary responsibilities are not related to Cyber Security – as well as practitioners whose primary responsibilities are related to Cyber Security. Objective: We aim to map cyber-enabled job roles to knowledge areas within the Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK). In doing so, we aim to raise awareness and adoption of the CyBOK amongst cyber-enabled practitioners, which will help to address the UK Cyber Skills Gap. Method: We held a mapping workshop with cyber-enabled practitioners and worked together to map their job roles to the CyBOK. After the workshop, we created resources and held a showcase event to disseminate the mappings to a wider audience of cyber-enabled practitioners. Results: We present the mappings as results alongside an evaluation of the mapping workshop we held. Together, these results demonstrate the value of holding further mapping workshops (using session plans and supplementary resources we have created). Conclusion: Further work is needed to build upon the preliminary mappings presented in this report. We recommend that the workshop resources we have developed and trialed are used to co-produce mappings with a greater quantity and variety of cyber-enabled practitioners.

The Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) is a valuable resource that aims to structure established knowledge related to Cyber Security. In this funded Outreach, Adoption, and Awareness project, we aimed to map cyber-enabled roles to the CyBOK using participatory methods. This booklet presents summarised findings from a funded Outreach, Adoption, and Awareness project for version 1.1 of the CyBOK. The project was titled 'Mapping cyber-enabled roles to CyBOK knowledge areas through cooperative inquiry' and involved the delivery of mapping workshops and the development of resources based on the findings of these workshops. Cyber-enabled roles in the context of this booklet means anyone who uses digital technologies in their work. The term is derived from the 2022 Cyber Skills in the UK Labour Market government report. Though we did adopt a slightly broader definition in this project to avoid discouraging anyone from participating. A mapping workshop was held at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. This workshop was inspired by participatory arts-based research. In the workshop, participants formed groups based on their roles, and then mapped these joint roles to CyBOK knowledge areas.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is a technology that connects devices to collect data and conduct in-depth analysis to provide value-added services to industries. The integration of the physical and digital domains is crucial for unlocking the full potential of the IIoT, and digital twins can facilitate this integration by providing a virtual representation of real-world entities. By combining digital twins with the IIoT, industries can simulate, predict, and control physical behaviors, enabling them to achieve broader value and support industry 4.0 and 5.0. Constituents of cooperative IIoT domains tend to interact and collaborate during their complicated operations. To secure such interaction and collaborations, we introduce a blockchain-based cross-domain authentication protocol for IIoT. The blockchain maintains only each domain's dynamic accumulator, which accumulates crucial materials derived from devices, decreasing the overhead. In addition, we use the on-chain accumulator to effectively validate the unlinkable identities of cross-domain IIoT devices. The implementation of the concept reveals the fact that our protocol is efficient and reliable. This efficiency and reliability of our protocol is also substantiated through comparison with state-of-the-art literature. In contrast to related protocols, our protocol exhibits a minimum 22.67% increase in computation cost efficiency and a 16.35% rise in communication cost efficiency. The developed protocol guarantees data transfer security across the domain and thwarts IoT devices from potential physical attacks. Additionally, in order to protect privacy, anonymity and unlinkability are also guaranteed. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2023. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.]

Drawing on the central theme of open innovation and the inbound flow of knowledge for improving a firm’s innovation performance, this research investigates the application of external knowledge (i.e., competitor intelligence) in product innovation through the mediators of inter-functional coordination and open-mindedness. We examine the joint moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on results obtained from survey data involving 284 executives from Chinese IT SMEs. Our results reveal that competitor intelligence has a positive and direct effect on product innovation, and that relationships can be further strengthened by inter-functional coordination and open-mindedness. In testing their interaction with dynamic external environments, we found that the level of environmental uncertainty interacts positively with open-mindedness, but negatively with the effect of inter-functional coordination on product innovation. We conclude that by building openly-innovative and knowledge sharing culture, SME managers can improve their product innovation performance by obtaining and processing external knowledge relating to competitors. This study contributes to the open innovation literature, advancing understanding of the inflow of external knowledge for innovative output and, more importantly, sheds light on the research of open innovation practices in SMEs from emerging economies.

Supplemental oxygen is recognized worldwide as a life-saving treatment for first aid, acute and chronic diseases, and this has recently become more important than ever, due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. This study aims to analyze two important issues related to oxygen therapy in patients with respiratory difficulties, namely oxygen quality and patient safety monitoring. The specific case in which the supply of oxygen fails due to the disconnection of the nasal cannula has no solution in the open literature. As a result, tangible results on how such risk can be avoided are still missing, and hardly any guideline can be found on how to treat this issue from the engineering perspective. In this respect, this work is dedicated to exploring sensing technologies used to detect vital signs and track the patient's condition in real time during therapy, with the aim of defining a starting picture of the current state of the art. The results obtained following the verification of some of the most used sensors in the market are therefore presented and discussed. The integration of these components in an embedded system has also allowed us to understand the practical limits and strengths in terms of complexity and effectiveness of each technology.

Secure development is often thought of as a proactive approach to cyber security. Rather than building a technological solution and then securing it in retrospect, secure development strives to embed good security practices throughout the development process and reduce risk. Unfortunately, evidence suggests secure development is complex, costly, and limited in practice. This article therefore introduces security-focused prototyping as a natural precursor to secure development. Security-focused prototyping embeds security at the beginning of the development process, can be used to discover domain-specific security requirements through active learning, and can help communicate the complexity of secure development to organizations such that the resources and commitment it requires are better understood. A case study considering the application layer of an Internet of Things system is presented and shows that security-focused prototyping has the potential to facilitate further secure development through the achievement of well-established prototyping objectives, such as communication, active learning, and reduced time/costs. Future work could build on this work by conducting additional case studies to further explore the potential of security-focused prototyping and investigating the importance of fidelity with regards to security-focused prototypes.

The significant expansion of connected aerial vehicles – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)/drones – is widened in various areas because of high mobility, dynamic configuration and low maintenance cost of UAVs. The researchers have not fully explored the various research issues in aerial network despite of rapidly increased usage of UAVs in several areas over the last few years. In this context, this chapter presents a comprehensive review on autonomous and connected aerial vehicles such as UAVs/drones in Internet of Things (IoT) environments focusing on research issues-based studies. The issues-based techniques in the aerial environment have been categorically described focusing on their limitations and technical contributions while considering various research metrics. The techniques suggested by researchers have been categorized based on five various issues existing in the research area of connected aerial vehicles. These five issues are named as data collection, computing, routing, security and energy efficiency. Specifically, the significance of autonomous and connected aerial vehicles in IoT environments is highlighted. Following the issues-based taxonomy, a technique-based qualitative review is carried out on various research challenges raised in aerial environments while focusing on main functional components, weaknesses and strengths. The open research challenges related to connected aerial vehicles: UAVs and drones are identified as future research directions in the area.

Drawing on the central themes of open innovation of the knowledge inflows and outflows for a firm’s innovative achievement, this research investigates the application of external knowledge (i.e. competitor intelligence) for product innovation. We posit that open-mindedness and inter-functional coordination mediate the relationship between competitor intelligence and product innovation. We further explore the joint moderating effect of the dynamic emerging market environment on the effects of open-mindedness and inter-functional coordination on product innovation. Survey data were collected from 284 executives from Chinese IT SMEs. Analysis methods of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) are applied. Results showed that competitor intelligence has a positive and direct effect on product innovation, and their relationships can be further strengthened by the mediators—open-mindedness and inter-functional coordination. In testing the interaction with the dynamic emerging market, we found that the external environment interacts positively with open-mindedness, but negatively with inter-functional coordination on the effect on product innovation. This research enriches our understanding of external knowledge inflow for open innovation application. It contextualises the positive impact of being an open-minded and inter-functional coordinated on a firm’s product innovation. Managerial implications and future research avenues are discussed

The internet of Drones (IoD) can encompass many essential services, including surveillance and emergency/rescue operations. While IoD is becomin popular and experiencing a rapid usage increase, privacy and security are the main concerns to avoid leakage of critical information and/or denial of services by a single drone or a whole IoD network. In addition to traditional privacy cum security issues, the physical capture of a single drone can severely impact the entire IoD network. This article provides an overview of the security challenges and requirements for IoD environments in addition to a discussion related to IoD communication/security standards. More-over, this article proposes a novel scheme for securing IoD specifically, from physical drone capturing and related attacks.

The physical-layer security (PLS) of wireless networks has witnessed significant attention in next-generation communication systems due to its potential toward enabling protection at the signal level in dense network environments. The growing trends toward smart mobility via sensor-enabled vehicles are transforming today’s traffic environment into Internet of Vehicles (IoVs). Enabling PLS for IoVs would be a significant development considering the dense vehicular network environment in the near future. In this context, this article presents a PLS framework for a vehicular network consisting a legitimate receiver and an eavesdropper, both under the effect of interfering vehicles. The double-Rayleigh fading channel is used to capture the effect of mobility within the communication channel. The performance is analyzed in terms of the average secrecy capacity (ASC) and secrecy outage probability (SOP). We present the standard expressions for the ASC and SOP in alternative forms, to facilitate analysis in terms of the respective moment generating function (MGF) and characteristic function of the joint fading and interferer statistics. Closed-form expressions for the MGFs and characteristic functions were obtained and Monte Carlo simulations were provided to validate the results. Approximate expressions for the ASC and SOP were also provided, for easier analysis and insight into the effect of the network parameters. The results attest that the performance of the considered system was affected by the number of interfering vehicles as well as their distances. It was also demonstrated that the system performance closely correlates with the uncertainty in the eavesdropper’s vehicle location.