Experimental results of using AES-128 in LoRaWAN

In the Internet of Things (IoT), Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) technologies have been obtaining considerable attention. Long-Range Wide-Area Networks (LoRaWAN) was created by the Long Range (LoRa) Alliance as an open standard operating over the unlicensed band. Its advantages include a large coverage area, low power consumption, and inexpensive transceiver chips. The standard of LoRaWAN encryption uses a 128-bit symmetric algorithm called Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). This standard secures communication and entities which are beneficial for resource-constrained devices on the IoT for efficient communication and security. The security problems with LoRa networks and devices remain an important challenge considering the technology large deployment for numerous applications. Even though LoRaWAN network architecture and security have been enhanced by the LoRa Alliance, the most recent version still has some weaknesses such as its susceptibility to attacks. Many studies and researchers have indicated that LoRaWAN versions 1.0 and 1.1 have security risks and vulnerabilities. This research proposes a method to construct and integrate cryptographic algorithms (AES-128) within widely utilized wireless Network Server Simulators NS-3. This module aims to increase the security of data in LoRa networks by protecting critical information from unauthorized access. Consequently, implementing the AES-128 encryption algorithm within the NS-3 simulator will benefit the scientific community greatly. This will enable an examination of the impact of various security measures on network performance metrics, including latency, overhead, energy consumption, throughput, and packet size.

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