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

2025-10-23

AI Summary

This study addresses the insufficient cybersecurity robustness of LoRaWAN-based smart lighting systems in real-world deployments. We propose a practical attack-testing framework integrating controlled lab experiments with iterative field trials to systematically evaluate security vulnerabilities in commercial off-the-shelf devices. Our key contributions include: (i) identifying high-power, short-range physical-layer interference as the predominant threat to end-devices and gateways—previously underexplored; and (ii) the first empirical validation that gateway redundancy significantly enhances system resilience against such interference. Experimental results demonstrate that most protocol-layer attacks fail in operational environments, whereas physical-layer jamming remains a tangible threat; our redundancy mechanism improves communication availability by over 70% under strong interference. The work establishes a reusable, empirically grounded evaluation methodology and deployable mitigation strategies for low-power wide-area IoT security design.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks & Smart Cities
• Computer Vision: Adversarial Attacks & Robustness
• Natural Language Processing: Safety and Robustness

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Responsible Web: Measurement, analysis, and circumvention of Web censorship

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.

Problem

• Investigating cybersecurity vulnerabilities in LoRaWAN-based smart lighting systems
• Assessing system robustness against various cyber attacks experimentally
• Identifying unresolved security issues in installed LoRaWAN products

Innovation

• Experimental investigation of LoRaWAN architectural configurations
• Iterative robustness testing in lab and on-site
• Gateway redundancy mitigates high-power jamming attacks