Smart Farming Techniques for Climate Change Adaptation in Cyprus

Internet of Things (IoT) technology has been incorporated into the majority of people’s everyday lives and places of employment due to the quick development in information technology. Modern agricultural techniques increasingly use the well-known and superior approach of managing a farm known as “smart farming”. Utilizing a variety of information and agricultural technologies, crops are observed for their general health and productivity. This requires monitoring the condition of field crops and looking at many other indicators. The goal of smart agriculture is to reduce the amount of money spent on agricultural inputs while keeping the quality of the final product constant. The Internet of Things (IoT) has made smart agriculture possible through data collection and storage techniques. For example, modern irrigation systems use effective sensor networks to collect field data for the best plant irrigation. Smart agriculture will become more susceptible to cyber-attacks as its reliance on the IoT ecosystem grows, because IoT networks have a large number of nodes but limited resources, which makes security a difficult issue. Hence, it is crucial to have an intrusion detection system (IDS) that can address such challenges. In this manuscript, an IoT-based privacy-preserving anomaly detection model for smart agriculture has been proposed. The motivation behind this work is twofold. Firstly, ensuring data privacy in IoT-based agriculture is of the utmost importance due to the large volumes of sensitive information collected by IoT devices, including on environmental conditions, crop health, and resource utilization data. Secondly, the timely detection of anomalies in smart agriculture systems is critical to enable proactive interventions, such as preventing crop damage, optimizing resource allocation, and ensuring sustainable farming practices. In this paper, we propose a privacy-encoding-based enhanced deep learning framework for the difficulty of data encryption and intrusion detection. In terms of data encoding, a novel method of a sparse capsule-auto encoder (SCAE) is proposed along with feature selection, feature mapping, and feature normalization. An SCAE is used to convert information into a new encrypted format in order to prevent deduction attacks. An attention-based gated recurrent unit neural network model is proposed to detect the intrusion. An AGRU is an advanced version of a GRU which is enhanced by an attention mechanism. In the results section, the proposed model is compared with existing deep learning models using two public datasets. Parameters such as recall, precision, accuracy, and F1-score are considered. The proposed model has accuracy, recall, precision, and F1-score of 99.9%, 99.7%, 99.9%, and 99.8%, respectively. The proposed method is compared using a variety of machine learning techniques such as the deep neural network (DNN), convolutional neural network (CNN), recurrent neural network (RNN), and long short-term memory (LSTM).

The Internet of Things (IoT) devices is able to communicate with another IoT devices in heterogeneous environments. They are also able to create a network by their own using wireless capabilities without a centralized approach. This network is called wireless mobile ad hoc network (MANET). The MANET facilitate IoT devices to communicate with each other in an infrastructure less network of the Internet of Things environment. The IoT devices can dynamically join, create connection and exchange information among them. The role of cloud in this framework is to store and process the data by IoT devices. The communication Security has been raised as one of the most critical issues of cloud computing where resolving such an issue would result in a constant growth in the use and popularity of cloud. Our purpose of this study is to create a framework for providing the communication in an integrated framework of Cloud and MANET among IoT devices. Our main contribution links a new study that integrates cloud computing to the MANET and provides communication to the internet of things. This study can be used in the framework of the Internet of Things in future.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has had a considerable influence on our daily lives by enabling enhanced connection of devices, systems, and services that extends beyond machine-to-machine interactions and encompasses a wide range of protocols, domains, and applications. However, despite privacy concerns shown by IoT users, little has been done to reduce and protect individual information exposure. It is extremely difficult to mitigate IoT devices from reidentification threats which is why it is still a major challenge for IoT users to securely protect their information. The trust controls how we regulate privacy in our IoT platforms in the same way that it governs personal relationships. As IoT devices become increasingly linked, more data is shared across individuals, businesses, governments, and ecosystems. Technologies, sensors, machines, data, and cloud connections all rely largely on trust relationships that have been formed. With the rapid growth of additional types of IoT devices that are being introduced, it, therefore, expands privacy concerns and is difficult to develop trust with an IoT system or device without the option to regulate information privacy settings. Privacy has always been a barrier for many devices as they race for the early adoption of IoT technologies. Several Internet of Things devices or systems will continue to pose privacy threats. As a result, the main objective of this study was to examine the individual understanding of privacy and to promote information privacy protection awareness not only to IoT users but also to organizations that use IoT devices or platforms to run their day-to-day business operations. Furthermore, the objective extends to compare user knowledge and concerns about IoT privacy, as well as to identify any common attitudes and variances. However, in terms of enhancing individuals’ knowledge, an artifact was developed to educate and enhance information privacy awareness among IoT users. A pre- and postquestionnaire was generated to test and validate user knowledge regarding information privacy protection in IoT. The study was conducted using a quantitative research method. Findings indicate that IoT users’ awareness of information privacy protection turned out to be average, suggesting a need for education and awareness. Several participants stated that information privacy protection awareness is required within the community to educate, raise awareness, eliminate human error, and enable individuals to be conscious of their privacy when surfing the Internet.

The growing use of technological devices in everyday life, through the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, has enabled the integration of smart objects through embedded computing, wireless communication, and cloud infrastructure. Services such as urban monitoring, smart homes, intelligent transportation systems, and smart agriculture are examples of IoT applications. However, the exponential growth of IoT devices, estimated at 40 billion by 2034, increases cybersecurity risks. Limited hardware resources and minimal security requirements make IoT devices vulnerable to malware infections, botnet formation, and DDoS attacks, harming critical infrastructure and users. Therefore, this work addressed IoT security through the implementation of a honeypot security mechanism. This mechanism is designed to attract, record, and analyze malicious activity. The proposed solution was implemented at the edge of an academic network in Brazil, integrating Cowrie software with a low-cost embedded IoT computing platform, the Raspberry Pi 3. The implemented honeypot enabled the recording and analysis of attack attempts in real time, including executed commands, origins by country and IP address, and most used credentials. The results confirm that the honeypot fulfilled its decoy functions, providing relevant information about malicious activities, attacker profiles, and IoT botnet attacks.

In this study, we first present a framework that jointly optimizes energy harvesting and information decoding for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which are capable of simultaneous wireless information and power reception, in a smarty city. In particular, a generalized power-splitting receiver for IoT devices is designed, where each antenna in the receiver has an independent power splitter, unlike the existing works in which only one power splitter is employed regardless of the number of antennas in the receiver. Such a receiver design can provide a great degree of freedom to improve the network performance. Based on the presented framework, for each IoT device, we formulate an optimization problem whose objective is to maximize the harvested energy of each IoT device while satisfying its data rate requirement. To solve this problem, we propose a double-deep deterministic policy gradient-based online learning algorithm which enables each IoT device to jointly determine receive beamforming and power-splitting ratio vectors in real time. Furthermore, each IoT device can implement the proposed algorithm in a distributed manner using only its local channel state information. As such, cooperation and information exchange among the base stations and IoT devices are not necessary when performing the proposed algorithm at IoT devices. The extensive simulation results show the validity of the proposed algorithm.

Seeing is not always believing: Insights on IoT manufacturing from firmware composition analysis and vendor survey

With the advancement in science and technology, the demand for electronic Internet of Things (IoT) devices has increased to store and process digital data. With the advancement in IoT technology, we are more reliant on IoT devices to perform our regular tasks. IoT Forensics deals with the investigation of IoT devices such as smartphones, tablets, smart watches, or any device which is connected to the Internet. The data on these devices can still be retrieved via IoT forensics even if they are destroyed, resold, or misplaced. Before discarding any IoT device, we must consider how to secure the data stored on them. We are then going to discuss the several types of personal data that could be retrieved from discarded IoT devices. Finally, we are going to discuss the protection measures for the safe disposal of IoT devices.

ABSTRACTIn recent years, the emerging development of Internet of things (IoT) has created new opportunities for IoT service provider, device manufacturer and customer (end user). In agriculture, employing IoT can help reducing manpower as well as standardizing agricultural processes, thus increasing the benefit for customer who does agricultural business. Beside the opportunities, there are also issues while doing maintenance for an agricultural IoT system. One of them is how to automate the process to detect faults of IoT devices in a large deployment area. While previous studies focus on investigating algorithms as well as theoretical model to detect faults for specific IoT devices, automatically expanding of IoT management process for detecting faults of sensor/actuator has not been investigated yet. To achieve this, we should be able to deal with the relationship between IoT device manufacturer, service provider and customer. In this study, we conceptualize the knowledge of IoT devices, management process and fault detection requirement. To realize this model, we introduce a runtime system to expand the IoT management process for detecting sensor/actuator faults which is able to provide the above features. We do several experiments to show the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed solution.

With the advancement of 5G mobile telecommunication, various IoT (Internet of Things) devices communicate massive amounts of data by being connected to wireless networks. Since this wireless communication is vulnerable to hackers via data leakage during communication, the transmitted data should be encrypted through block ciphers to protect the data during communication. In addition, in order to encrypt the massive amounts of data securely, it is essential to apply one of secure mode of operation. Among them, CTR (CounTeR) mode is the most widely used in industrial applications. However, these IoT devices have limited resources of computing and memory compared to typical computers, so that it is challenging to process cryptographic algorithms that have computation-intensive tasks in IoT devices at high speed. Thus, it is required that cryptographic algorithms are optimized in IoT devices. In other words, optimizing cryptographic operations on these IoT devices is not only basic but also an essential effort in order to build secure IoT-based service systems. For efficient encryption on IoT devices, even though several ARX (Add-Rotate-XOR)-based ciphers have been proposed, it still necessary to improve the performance of encryption for smooth and secure IoT services. In this article, we propose the first parallel implementations of CTR mode of ARX-based ciphers: LEA (Lightweight Encryption Algorithm), HIGHT (high security and light weight), and revised CHAM on the ARMv8 platform, a popular microcontroller in various IoT applications. For the parallel implementation, we propose an efficient data parallelism technique and register scheduling, which maximizes the usage of vector registers. Through proposed techniques, we process the maximum amount of encryption simultaneously by utilizing all vector registers. Namely, in the case of HIGHT and revised CHAM-64/128 (resp. LEA, revised CHAM-128/128, and CHAM-128/256), we can execute 48 (resp. 24) encryptions simultaneously. In addition, we optimize the process of CTR mode by pre-computing and using the intermediate value of some initial rounds by utilizing the property that the nonce part of CTR mode input is fixed during encryptions. Through the pre-computation table, CTR mode is optimized up until round 4 in LEA, round 5 in HIGHT, and round 7 in revised CHAM. With the proposed parallel processing technique, our software provides 3.09%, 5.26%, and 9.52% of improved performance in LEA, HIGHT, and revised CHAM-64/128, respectively, compared to the existing parallel works in ARM-based MCU. Furthermore, with the proposed CTR mode optimization technique, our software provides the most improved performance with 8.76%, 8.62%, and 15.87% in LEA-CTR, HIGHT-CTR, and revised CHAM-CTR, respectively. This work is the fastest implementation of CTR mode on ARMv8 architecture to the best of our knowledge.

The number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has increased recently and will increase further in the future. IoT devices are vulnerable, so vendors update and distribute firmware. At the time of firmware distribution, a huge number of IoT devices may connect to the firmware server and excessive network traffic may occur. Consequently, a method using a peer-to-peer file sharing system and a blockchain has been proposed. One study proposed an update scheme considering incentives for distributors to help with updating. However, this method requires the IoT devices, which have limited processing power, to decrypt encrypted files, and the distribution nodes to pay the transaction cost. This paper proposes a firmware distribution method that provides incentives for distributors to help with distribution to reduce the gas costs, using a smart contract and access control based on update records. The additional computations performed by IoT devices and distributors key management were reduced compared to those in previous studies by using access control instead of encryption. Further, the proposed approach was implemented and evaluated using a Raspberry Pi and laptop. The evaluation demonstrated that the gas cost per update was successfully lowered compared to the costs in previous studies.

As location-aware IoT (Internet of Things) devices intend to spread across almost every application, IoT devices are going to require different GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) receiver design requirements. To deliver on IoT opportunities, system architects and designers need to look carefully at every aspect of system design and architecture to be able to enable the full potential of the IoT era. IoT devices are equipped with different connectivity sensors that can provide a reliable integrated location-awareness solution. IoT devices are mainly relying on GNSS chip to deliver a service when no other RF signal is available. Hence, GNSS chip is expected to maintain a robust and reliable performance even in harsh environment. The harsh environment includes multipath environment, NLOS (Non-Line of Sight) GNSS signal reception, weak GNSS signal power reception, superimposed motion (e.g., arm swing, floating platform fluctuation …etc.), operation under freezing temperature, and interference. The targeted low-cost system design along with the expected harsh operational environment derived us to face exceptional GNSS signal reception condition. This paper discusses lessons learned, and challenges faced signal acquisition, reacquisition, and tracking for several IoT applications. Different operational modes are also explored to accommodate various use cases scenarios for several IoT applications. These different power consumption operational modes allow the GNSS chip to achieve an Ultra-low power consumption which indeed required for IoT applications. This paper provides an overview about the addressed GNSS chip fabricated in a 28nm FD-SOI process. We demonstrate a system performance and power consumption comparison of this chip along with other state-of-the-art GNSS chip. We compare the positioning performance for this device alongside another state-of-the-art GNSS modules and Novatel’s tightly coupled GNSS/INS (Inertial Navigation System) reference solution at numerous scenarios ranging from walking, running, and driving at several sites under different environment.

Precision agriculture technologies (PATs) transform crop production by enabling more sustainable and efficient agricultural practices. These technologies utilize data-driven approaches to optimize the management of crops, soil, and resources, thus enhancing both productivity and environmental sustainability. This article reviewed the application of PATs for sustainable crop production and environmental sustainability around the globe. Key components of PAT include remote sensing, GPS-guided equipment, variable rate technology (VRT), and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Remote sensing and drones deliver high-resolution imagery and data, enabling precise monitoring of crop health, soil conditions, and pest activity. GPS-guided machinery ensures accurate planting, fertilizing, and harvesting, which reduces waste and enhances efficiency. VRT optimizes resource use by allowing farmers to apply inputs such as water, fertilizers, and pesticides at varying rates across a field based on real-time data and specific crop requirements. This reduces over-application and minimizes environmental impact, such as nutrient runoff and greenhouse gas emissions. IoT devices and sensors provide continuous monitoring of environmental conditions and crop status, enabling timely and informed decision-making. The application of PAT contributes significantly to environmental sustainability by promoting practices that conserve water, reduce chemical usage, and enhance soil health. By enhancing the precision of agricultural operations, these technologies reduce the environmental impact of farming, while simultaneously boosting crop yields and profitability. As the global demand for food increases, precision agriculture offers a promising pathway to achieving sustainable crop production and ensuring long-term environmental health.

Aims: Internet of Things (IoT) is the evolution of the Internet designed to sense, collect, analyze and distribute the data via IoT devices that form its core component. An important aspect of pervasive IoT applications is its resource-constrained devices. Most of the real-time Edge-IoT applications generate a huge amount of data, which add to the resource consumption in these devices. To save resources in such applications, efficient node deployment and data aggregation techniques can be used. This paper presents the design and modeling of node deployment and data aggregation in Edge-IoT applications along with the homogeneous and heterogeneous network scenarios for smart agriculture. Objectives: To save resources in such applications, efficient node deployment and data aggregation techniques can be used. This paper presents the design and modeling of node deployment and data aggregation in Edge-IoT applications along with the homogeneous and heterogeneous network scenarios for smart agriculture. Methods: For heterogeneous scenarios, we propose a clustering approach, Superior Aggregator Resource Efficient Clustering (SAREC), to address the resource constraints in pervasive Edge-IoT applications. The comparison of homogeneous and heterogeneous networks is based on LEACH and SAREC protocols, respectively. Results: The results show that SAREC is 25% more efficient in energy utilization and network lifetime than LEACH. The results also show that SAREC is more efficient in terms of storage and processing time as compared to LEACH. Conclusion: Node deployment is an important aspect in determining the architecture, which plays an important role in resource management in pervasive applications of IoT. The IoT nodes are distributed in a selected geographical location and the topology of the network is pre-decided to form an Edge-IoT network. In such an environment, the nodes are deployed to sense, aggregate and analyze the data. This paper presents a pervasive Edge-IoT network along with the mathematical modeling consisting of deployment and aggregation models. An Edge-IoT network for smart agriculture has been deployed and analysis of resource utilization has been performed in homogeneous and heterogeneous scenarios of the network. The resource limitations in pervasive IoT network motivated us to develop a SAREC approach for such Edge-IoT applications that optimizes the use of resources. The comparison of the proposed SAREC protocol is made with respect to LEACH protocol on the basis of energy, network lifetime, number of alive nodes, storage and processing time. The results show that SAREC protocol is 25% more efficient in energy utilization and network lifetime than LEACH. It is also evident from the results that the SAREC is more efficient in terms of storage and processing time as compared to LEACH.

Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that consists of tiny sensors embedded with IoT devices used in e-Health, smart cities and assisted living. IoT devices are equipped with constrained power, memory, and computing capabilities, which creates new security challenges. By integrating sensors and wireless technologies, this cutting-edge technology automates numerous routine tasks in different domains. The main goal of advancing IoT in the existing healthcare system is to automate the monitoring of hospitals and patients’ health by spreading goodwill toward the IoT vision. IoT has gained popularity on practically all platforms that are available. This paper presents a remote patient health monitoring and diagnosis system that uses Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol (MQTT) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices with one time pad cryptography. The proposed plan offers end-to-end data secrecy for an IoT system using MQTT that enables e-health and mobility. Patients’ movements inside nursing homes and healthcare facilities are also managed safely without the need for periodic reconfigurations. Prior to communicating through the MQTT protocol, this secure crypto scheme encrypts the message on both the publisher and subscriber ends. According to the results, the proposed scheme is more efficient than delegation-based architecture in terms of security and lightweight communication. The proposed system established communication between patients and medical experts using IoT technologies to alleviate the hospital strain caused by congestion in medical treatment and enable an expressway of medical responses. According to our results the proposed scheme has low computational overhead compared to other solutions that use conventional encryption to guarantee robust protection against most of the IoT security attacks.

The deployment of a client–server-based distributed intelligent system involves application development in both the network domain and the device domain. In the network domain, an application server (typically in the cloud) is deployed to execute the network applications. In the device domain, several Internet of Things (IoT) devices may be configured as, for example, wireless sensor networks (WSNs), and interact with each other through the application server. Developing the network and the device applications are tedious tasks that are the major costs for building a distributed intelligent system. To resolve this issue, a low-code or no-code (LCNC) approach has been purposed to automate code generation. As traditional LCNC solutions are highly generic, they tend to generate excess code and instructions, which will lack efficiency in terms of storage and processing. Fortunately, optimization of automated code generation can be achieved for IoT by taking advantage of the IoT characteristics. An IoT-based distributed intelligent system consists of the device domain (IoT devices) and the network domain (IoT server). The software of an IoT device in the device domain consists of the Device Application (DA) and the Sensor Application (SA). Most IoT LCNC approaches provide code generation in the network domain. Very few approaches automatically generate the DA code. To our knowledge, no approach supports the SA code generation. In this paper, we propose DeviceTalk, an LCNC environment for the DA and the SA code development. DeviceTalk automatically generates the code for IoT devices to speed up the software development in the device domain for a distributed intelligent system. We propose the DeviceTalk architecture, design and implementation of the code generation mechanism for the IoT devices. Then, we show how a developer can use the DeviceTalk Graphical User Interface (GUI) to exercise LCNC development of the device software.