On the cybersecurity of LoRaWAN-based system: a Smart-Lighting case study

TL;DR

This paper investigates the cybersecurity robustness of a LoRaWAN-based Smart-Lighting system through experimental assessments, identifying vulnerabilities and proposing mitigation strategies like gateway redundancy.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of LoRaWAN security in a smart lighting context, highlighting attack success rates and mitigation techniques.

Findings

Most LoRaWAN attacks are unsuccessful

High-power jamming attacks are most effective within meters

Gateway redundancy mitigates some attack risks

Abstract

Cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things (IoT) are key technologies in the Industry 4.0 vision. They incorporate sensors and actuators to interact with the physical environment. However, when creating and interconnecting components to form a heterogeneous smart systems architecture, these face challenges in cybersecurity. This paper presents an experimental investigation of architectural configurations for a LoRaWAN-based Smart-Lighting project, aimed at verifying and improving the system's robustness against attacks. We assess the system's robustness in a series of iterative experiments conducted both in-vitro and on-site. The results show that most attacks on a LoRaWAN network are unsuccessful, also highlighting unresolved issues with the installed products. The most successful attacks are high-power jamming attacks within a few meters of the target, which, in the case of gateways, can be mitigated through gateway redundancy.