LoRaWAN with HSM as a Security Improvement for Agriculture Applications

Abstract

The digital future in agriculture has started a long time ago, with Smart Farming and Agriculture 4.0 being synonyms that describe the change in this domain. Digitalization stands for the needed technology to realize the transformation from conventional to modern agriculture. The continuously monitoring of all environmental data and the recording of all work parameters enables data collections, which are used for precise decision making and the planning of in-time missions. To guarantee secure and genuine data, appropriate data security measures must be provided. This paper will present a research work in the EU AFarCloud project. It introduces the important LoRaWAN data communication technology for the transmission of sensor data and to present a concept for improving data security and protection of sensor nodes. Data and device protection are becoming increasingly important, particularly around LoRaWAN applications in agriculture. In the first part, a general assessment of the security situation in modern agriculture, data encryption methods, and the LoRaWAN data communication technology, will be presented. Then, the paper explains the security improvement concept by using a Hardware Secure Module (HSM), which not only improves the data security but also prevents device manipulations. A real system implementation (Security Evaluation Demonstrator, SED) helps to validate the correctness and the correct function of the advanced security improvement. Finally, an outlook on necessary future works declares what should be done in order to make the digital agriculture safe and secure in the same extent as Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) will be today.