{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,10]],"date-time":"2026-04-10T19:05:51Z","timestamp":1775847951272,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"14","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,20]],"date-time":"2024-07-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1721433600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"VLAIO","award":["HBC.2021.0895"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HBC.2021.0895"]}]},{"name":"VLAIO","award":["343 EBG"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["343 EBG"]}]},{"name":"BMWi (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy)","award":["HBC.2021.0895"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HBC.2021.0895"]}]},{"name":"BMWi (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy)","award":["343 EBG"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["343 EBG"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Environmental monitoring is essential for safeguarding the health of our planet and protecting human health and well-being. Without trust, the effectiveness of environmental monitoring and the ability to address environmental challenges are significantly compromised. In this paper, we present a sensor platform capable of performing authenticated and trustworthy measurements, together with a lightweight security protocol for sending the data from the sensor to a central server anonymously. Besides presenting a new and very efficient symmetric-key-based protocol, we also demonstrate on real hardware how existing embedded security modules can be utilized for this purpose. We provide an in-depth evaluation of the performance and a detailed security analysis.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s24144720","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,22]],"date-time":"2024-07-22T14:45:53Z","timestamp":1721659553000},"page":"4720","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Trustworthy Environmental Monitoring Using Hardware-Assisted Security Mechanisms"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"24","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6071-0026","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Laurent","family":"Segers","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering Technology (INDI), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Borna","family":"Talebi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering Technology (INDI), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4877-9688","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bruno","family":"da Silva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8891-180X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Abdellah","family":"Touhafi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering Technology (INDI), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9965-915X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"An","family":"Braeken","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering Technology (INDI), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"361","DOI":"10.1016\/j.future.2023.01.016","article-title":"Internet of Thing (IoT) review of review: Bibliometric overview since its foundation","volume":"143","year":"2023","journal-title":"Future Gener. Comput. Syst."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ullo, S.L., and Sinha, G.R. (2020). Advances in smart environment monitoring systems using IoT and sensors. Sensors, 20.","DOI":"10.3390\/s20113113"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Li, Y., Yu, J., Wei, Y., Wang, Y., Feng, Z., Cheng, L., Huo, Z., Lei, Y., and Sun, Q. (2023). Recent progress in self-powered wireless sensors and systems based on TENG. Sensors, 23.","DOI":"10.3390\/s23031329"},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2202691","DOI":"10.1002\/aenm.202202691","article-title":"Sustainable long-term and wide-area environment monitoring network based on distributed self-powered wireless sensing nodes","volume":"13","author":"Liu","year":"2023","journal-title":"Adv. Energy Mater."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"597","DOI":"10.3390\/telecom4030026","article-title":"Design and Implementation of a Versatile openHab IoT Testbed with a Variety of Wireless Interfaces and Sensors","volume":"4","author":"Tsakalidis","year":"2023","journal-title":"Telecom"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rudrakar, S., and Rughani, P. (2023). IoT based agriculture (Ag-IoT): A detailed study on architecture, security and forensics. Inf. Process. Agric.","DOI":"10.1016\/j.inpa.2023.09.002"},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"Tan, X., Ma, Z., Pinto, S., Guan, L., Zhang, N., Xu, J., Lin, Z., Hu, H., and Zhao, Z. (2024). Where\u2019s the \u201cup\u201d?! A Comprehensive (bottom-up) Study on the Security of Arm Cortex-M Systems. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7369634","DOI":"10.1155\/2023\/7369634","article-title":"Investigating TrustZone: A Comprehensive Analysis","volume":"2023","author":"Zhu","year":"2023","journal-title":"Secur. Commun. Netw."},{"key":"ref_9","first-page":"1","article-title":"Physical unclonable functions (puf) for iot devices","volume":"55","year":"2023","journal-title":"ACM Comput. Surv."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Braeken, A. (2018). PUF based authentication protocol for IoT. Symmetry, 10.","DOI":"10.3390\/sym10080352"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"947","DOI":"10.1007\/s11276-020-02491-0","article-title":"Lightweight PUF based authentication scheme for fog architecture","volume":"27","author":"Vandervelden","year":"2021","journal-title":"Wirel. Netw."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103","DOI":"10.1007\/s10207-021-00543-w","article-title":"Public key versus symmetric key cryptography in client\u2013server authentication protocols","volume":"21","author":"Braeken","year":"2022","journal-title":"Int. J. Inf. Secur."},{"key":"ref_13","unstructured":"European Parliament (2024, April 29). Fact Sheets on the European Union, Air and Noise Pollution. Available online: https:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/factsheets\/en\/sheet\/75\/air-and-noise-pollution."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bobulski, J., Szymoniak, S., and Pasternak, K. (2024). An IoT System for Air Pollution Monitoring with Safe Data Transmission. Sensors, 24.","DOI":"10.3390\/s24020445"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"73","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comcom.2021.07.030","article-title":"Amelia\u2014A new security protocol for protection against false links","volume":"179","author":"Szymoniak","year":"2021","journal-title":"Comput. Commun."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Del Bimbo, A., Cucchiara, R., Sclaroff, S., Farinella, G.M., Mei, T., Bertini, M., Escalante, H.J., and Vezzani, R. (2021, January 10\u201315). Spatiotemporal Air Quality Inference of Low-Cost Sensor Data; Application on a Cycling Monitoring Network. Proceedings of the Pattern Recognition. ICPR International Workshops and Challenges, Virtual.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-68821-9"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Tellez, M., El-Tawab, S., and Heydari, H.M. (2016, January 29). Improving the security of wireless sensor networks in an IoT environmental monitoring system. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS), Charlottesville, VA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/SIEDS.2016.7489330"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"149","DOI":"10.3991\/ijim.v17i12.38095","article-title":"Poultry-edge-AI-IoT system for real-time monitoring and predicting by using artificial intelligence","volume":"17","author":"Jebari","year":"2023","journal-title":"Int. J. Interact. Mob. Technol."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rodr\u00edguez-P\u00e9rez, N., Caballero-Gil, P., Toledo-Castro, J., Santos-Gonz\u00e1lez, I., and Hern\u00e1ndez-Goya, C. (2018). Monitoring environmental conditions in airports with wireless sensor networks. Proceedings, 2.","DOI":"10.3390\/proceedings2191260"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5548","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2021.3109299","article-title":"A Secure Platform Model Based on ARM Platform Security Architecture for IoT Devices","volume":"9","author":"Jung","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"El-hajj, M., Mousawi, H., and Fadlallah, A. (2023). Analysis of Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms on IoT Hardware Platform. Future Internet, 15.","DOI":"10.3390\/fi15020054"},{"key":"ref_22","unstructured":"Next Generation, Contiki (2024, April 02). Zoul: Zolertia Zoul Platforms: Firefly, RE-Mote and Orion. Available online: https:\/\/docs.contiki-ng.org\/en\/develop\/doc\/platforms\/zolertia\/zoul.html."},{"key":"ref_23","unstructured":"Texas Instruments (2024, April 02). 32-bit Arm Cortex-M3 Zigbee, 6LoWPAN, and IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless MCU with 512kB Flash and 32kB RAM. Available online: https:\/\/www.ti.com\/product\/CC2538."},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Nordic Semiconductor (2024, April 09). nRF52840, Product Specification v1.8. Available online: https:\/\/infocenter.nordicsemi.com\/pdf\/nRF52840_PS_v1.8.pdf."},{"key":"ref_25","unstructured":"Next Generation, Contiki (2024, April 09). nrf52840: Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 (nRF5 SDK). Available online: https:\/\/docs.contiki-ng.org\/en\/develop\/doc\/platforms\/nrf52840.html."},{"key":"ref_26","unstructured":"Espressif Systems (2024, April 15). ESP32 WROOM 32E, ESP32 WROOM 32UE Datasheet. Available online: https:\/\/www.espressif.com\/sites\/default\/files\/documentation\/esp32-wroom-32e_esp32-wroom-32ue_datasheet_en.pdf."},{"key":"ref_27","unstructured":"Adafruit (2024, April 18). Adafruit Feather RP2040 with RFM95 LoRa Radio\u2014915 MHz\u2014RadioFruit and STEMMA QT. Available online: https:\/\/www.adafruit.com\/product\/5714."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"17539","DOI":"10.1109\/JSEN.2020.3033526","article-title":"Smart Irrigation System for Precision Agriculture\u2014The AREThOU5A IoT Platform","volume":"21","author":"Boursianis","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE Sens. J."},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"Particle Industries Inc. (2024, April 19). Particle Photon 2 IoT Development Board. Available online: https:\/\/store.particle.io\/products\/photon-2."},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"ETSI (2024, June 04). ETSI TS 133 501 V17.5.0-5G; Security architecture and procedures for 5G System (3GPP TS 33.501 Version 17.5.0 Release 17). Available online: https:\/\/www.etsi.org\/deliver\/etsi_ts\/133500_133599\/133501\/17.05.00_60\/ts_133501v170500p.pdf."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"109400","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2022.109400","article-title":"An improved and provably secure symmetric-key based 5G-AKA Protocol","volume":"218","author":"Yadav","year":"2022","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"107753","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2020.107753","article-title":"HashXor: A lightweight scheme for identity privacy of IoT devices in 5G mobile network","volume":"186","author":"Choudhury","year":"2021","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5329","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2020.2976740","article-title":"LSAA: A lightweight and secure access authentication scheme for both UE and mMTC devices in 5G networks","volume":"7","author":"Cao","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"107424","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2020.107424","article-title":"Symmetric key based 5G AKA authentication protocol satisfying anonymity and unlinkability","volume":"181","author":"Braeken","year":"2020","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"108373","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2021.108373","article-title":"An enhanced symmetric-key based 5G-AKA protocol","volume":"198","author":"Munilla","year":"2021","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Braeken, A. (2020). Highly efficient symmetric key based authentication and key agreement protocol using Keccak. Sensors, 20.","DOI":"10.3390\/s20082160"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"968","DOI":"10.1109\/TIFS.2016.2647225","article-title":"Anonymous secure framework in connected smart home environments","volume":"12","author":"Kumar","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur."},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lara, E., Aguilar, L., Sanchez, M.A., and Garc\u00eda, J.A. (2020). Lightweight authentication protocol for M2M communications of resource-constrained devices in industrial Internet of Things. Sensors, 20.","DOI":"10.3390\/s20020501"},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, C.M., Xiang, B., Wu, T.Y., and Wang, K.H. (2018). An anonymous mutual authenticated key agreement scheme for wearable sensors in wireless body area networks. Appl. Sci., 8.","DOI":"10.3390\/app8071074"},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mansoor, K., Ghani, A., Chaudhry, S.A., Shamshirband, S., Ghayyur, S.A.K., and Mosavi, A. (2019). Securing IoT-based RFID systems: A robust authentication protocol using symmetric cryptography. Sensors, 19.","DOI":"10.20944\/preprints201907.0298.v1"},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/3487060","article-title":"Lessons learned: Analysis of PUF-based authentication protocols for IoT","volume":"4","author":"Lounis","year":"2023","journal-title":"Digit. Threat. Res. Pract."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Qureshi, M.A., and Munir, A. (2020, January 10\u201313). PUF-IPA: A PUF-based identity preserving protocol for Internet of Things authentication. Proceedings of the IEEE 17th Annual Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, Las Vegas, NV, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/CCNC46108.2020.9045264"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yanambaka, V., Mohanty, S., Kougianos, E., Puthal, D., and Rachakonda, L. (2019, January 16\u201318). PMsec: PUF-Based Energy-Efficient Authentication of Devices in the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Smart Electronic Systems (iSES) (Formerly iNiS), Rourkela, India.","DOI":"10.1109\/iSES47678.2019.00079"},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nozaki, Y., and Yoshikawa, M. (2019, January 23\u201325). Secret sharing scheme based secure authentication for physical unclonable function. Proceedings of the IEEE 4th International Conference on Computer and Communication Systems, Singapore.","DOI":"10.1109\/CCOMS.2019.8821698"},{"key":"ref_45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"129","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ins.2019.06.047","article-title":"A double PUF-based RFID identity authentication protocol in service-centric internet of things environments","volume":"503","author":"Liang","year":"2019","journal-title":"Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12575","DOI":"10.1007\/s12652-022-04321-x","article-title":"PUF-based mutual authentication and session key establishment protocol for IoT devices","volume":"14","author":"Zerrouki","year":"2023","journal-title":"J. Ambient. Intell. Humaniz. Comput."},{"key":"ref_47","unstructured":"Microchip Technologies Inc. (2024, April 19). BM70\/71, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Module. Available online: https:\/\/ww1.microchip.com\/downloads\/en\/DeviceDoc\/BM70-71-Bluetooth-Low-Energy-BLE-Module-Data-Sheet-DS60001372H.pdf."},{"key":"ref_48","unstructured":"Cervesato, I. (2001, January 16\u201319). The Dolev-Yao intruder is the most powerful attacker. Proceedings of the 16th Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science\u2014LICS, Washington, DC, USA."},{"key":"ref_49","unstructured":"Microchip Technologies Inc. (2024, April 05). PIC32CM5164LS60064, Security with Trust Platform ATECC608, Touch, Ultra-low Power, and Smart Analog. Available online: https:\/\/www.microchip.com\/en-us\/product\/pic32cm5164ls60064."},{"key":"ref_50","unstructured":"(2024, April 05). NXP Semidonductors LPC55S3x Product Datasheet. Available online: https:\/\/www.nxp.com\/docs\/en\/data-sheet\/LPC55S3xDS.pdf."},{"key":"ref_51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Canetti, R., and Krawczyk, H. (2001, January 6\u201310). Analysis of key-exchange protocols and their use for building secure channels. Proceedings of the International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, Innsbruck, Austria.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-44987-6_28"},{"key":"ref_52","unstructured":"Pointcheval, D., and Zimmer, S. (2008, January 3\u20136). Multi-factor authenticated key exchange. Proceedings of the Applied Cryptography and Network Security: 6th International Conference, ACNS 2008, New York, NY, USA. Proceedings 6."},{"key":"ref_53","unstructured":"wolfSSL Inc. (2024, April 26). Embedded TLS Library for Applications, Devices, IoT, and the Cloud. Available online: https:\/\/www.wolfssl.com\/."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/24\/14\/4720\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T15:20:30Z","timestamp":1760109630000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/24\/14\/4720"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,20]]},"references-count":53,"journal-issue":{"issue":"14","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,7]]}},"alternative-id":["s24144720"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s24144720","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,20]]}}}