PAgIoT – Privacy-preserving Aggregation protocol for Internet of Things

• Published in: Journal of network and computer applications 2016-08, Vol.71, p.59-71
• Main Authors: González-Manzano, L., Fuentes, José M. de, Pastrana, Sergio, Peris-Lopez, Pedro, Hernández-Encinas, Luis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aggregation; Cryptography; Internet-of-things (IoT); Privacy preservation
• ISSN: 1084-8045; 1095-8592
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jnca.2016.06.001

Modern society highly relies on the use of cyberspace to perform a huge variety of activities, such as social networking or e-commerce, and new technologies are continuously emerging. As such, computer systems may store a huge amount of information, which makes data analysis and storage a challenge. Information aggregation and correlation are two basic mechanisms to reduce the problem size, for example by filtering out redundant data or grouping similar one. These processes require high processing capabilities, and thus their application in Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios is not straightforward due to resource constraints. Furthermore, privacy issues may arise when the data at stake is personal. In this paper we propose PAgIoT, a Privacy-preserving Aggregation protocol suitable for IoT settings. It enables multi-attribute aggregation for groups of entities while allowing for privacy-preserving value correlation. Results show that PAgIoT is resistant to security attacks, it outperforms existing proposals that provide with the same security features, and it is feasible in resource-constrained devices and for aggregation of up to 10 attributes in big networks.