sensors

Article
An Overview of Fog Computing and Edge Computing Security
and Privacy Issues
Ahmed M. Alwakeel 1,2

1 Sensor Network and Cellular Systems Research Center, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia;
[email protected]
2 Department of Information Technology, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: With the advancement of different technologies such as 5G networks and IoT the use of
different cloud computing technologies became essential. Cloud computing allowed intensive data
processing and warehousing solution. Two different new cloud technologies that inherit some of the
traditional cloud computing paradigm are fog computing and edge computing that is aims to simplify
some of the complexity of cloud computing and leverage the computing capabilities within the local
network in order to preform computation tasks rather than carrying it to the cloud. This makes
this technology fits with the properties of IoT systems. However, using such technology introduces
several new security and privacy challenges that could be huge obstacle against implementing these
technologies. In this paper, we survey some of the main security and privacy challenges that faces fog
and edge computing illustrating how these security issues could affect the work and implementation
of edge and fog computing. Moreover, we present several countermeasures to mitigate the effect of
these security issues.

Keywords: cloud computing; fog computing; edge computing; cloud security; fog security; IoT;



privacy of IoT



Citation: Alwakeel, A.M. An

Overview of Fog Computing and
Edge Computing Security and 1. Introduction
Privacy Issues. Sensors 2021, 21, 8226.
Nowadays, cloud computing has become an effective solution to allow an on demand
https://doi.org/10.3390/s21248226
platform for processing and sorting a huge amount of data [1]. The implementation of cloud
computing has spread across different areas including but not limited to education, finance
Academic Editor: Koffi-Clément Yao
manufacturing and healthcare [2,3]. As more systems start to rely on cloud computing, the
need for new technologies that leverage the benefits of cloud computing but considered
Received: 19 October 2021
Accepted: 26 November 2021
a lightweight solution without all the complexity of the cloud is needed to fit with the
Published: 9 December 2021
properties of lightweight systems such as IoT systems. Although devices in IoT systems
can preform some indispensable tasks such as controlling, actuating and sensing these
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral
devices cannot accomplish complex and sophisticated tasks such as controlling large smart
with regard to jurisdictional claims in
transportation systems and smart medical treatments. on the other hand. Many IoT
published maps and institutional affil- applications are time critical applications which may require immediate decision to give
iations. the best possible performance an example of such applications are vehicular network
and assisted healthcare application. As these applications cannot handle network latency,
sending the data for processing to cloud resources may cause delay in decision making
in such time critical application. Furthermore, Cloud computing is too complex for these
Copyright: © 2021 by the author.
devices to handle and it does not support some of the fundamental properties of IoT
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
systems such as location awareness and bandwidth shortage. Two new technologies that
This article is an open access article
can provide the benefits of cloud computing and yet addresses the special characteristics of
distributed under the terms and IoT systems are Fog computing and Edge computing [4]. Although these new technologies
conditions of the Creative Commons open doors to enhancement and growth of IoT systems it introduced several security and
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// privacy issues that may affect deployment and usage of IoT systems.
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ In this paper, we survey and list some of the main security and privacy concerns of
4.0/). the two technologies explaining how each attack may effect them as well as provide some

Sensors 2021, 21, 8226. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21248226 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors

Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 2 of 20

countermeasures that could help mitigate or prevent these security concerns in order to
achieve higher level of security and stable performance for the system. Although many
attacks that affect fog and edge computing are inherited from cloud computing, many of
the current solutions for cloud computing will not be effective or may not work properly as
in normal cloud environment due to the unique properties of fog and edge computing. So
we will highlight the uniqueness of these attacks in the realm of fog and edge computing
in this paper as well.
Some authors in the literature have discussed the security concerns for edge com-
puting as well as for fog computing. To our knowledge no other survey discuss the two
technologies showing different attacks that could be related to both environment as well
as which attacks may have higher impact on one specific environment. In [5], the authors
did systematic analysis of some of the attacks that could affect fog computing showing
the percentile of each attack happening in the environment. In [6] the author list some
security concerns toward specific applications for fog computing. As for edge computing
In [7], the authors discussed the security concerns in IoT applications that rely on edge
computing. In [8], the authors survey security and privacy issues for edge computing and
they classified the attacks based on the layer that the attack aims to effect. More surveys
are listed regard edge and fog security in section four and five of this paper.
In order to have a better understanding of this topic and understand the differences
between cloud computing, edge computing and Fog computing we will first provide
an overview of cloud computing in general. Explaining different deployment methods
for cloud computing fallowed by an overview of Fog computing and Edge computing
showing how they differ from each other and traditional cloud. The following section
will go over some of the security and privacy issues for the two technologies fallowed by
countermeasure section where we will list some of the methods to mitigate these attacks
for both fog and edge computing. Finally in the last section we will provide a conclusion
and a future work.

1.1. A General Overview of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing allows high utilization of resources with high scalability and flexibil-
ity. With other advantages such as decreasing the power consumption and allow the entire
services to be on demand so the users will have to pay only for the resources they will use
as well as access from anywhere. There are different definition for cloud computing but we
can consider the definition provided by NIST as one of the most broad definition which
define cloud computing as “a model for enabling convenient, on demand network access
to a shared of pool configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,
applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal man-
agement effort or service provider interaction” cloud computing provide three different
service models which are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (Paas) and
software as a service (SaaS).

1.2. Cloud Computing Service Models

1.2.1. Infrastructure as A Service (IaaS)
The Iaas model is the most abstract model for a cloud service provider simply provide
servers and storage as a virtual entity through the cloud for their customers. In this service,
models’ users can use the infrastructure to install their applications and operating system
without having to worry about maintenance and operation of the underlying infrastructure.
Moreover, users can enjoy scaling up or down their services without having to buy or
update their actual hardware since cloud service is on demand service where users pay
only for their usage. One of the most famous IaaS models is Amazon’s Ec2. Two example
of use cases for IaaS model are date warehousing and big data analytics. IaaS provides the
fallowing advantages:
• Considered to be the most flexible model from cloud computing.
• Cost effective in term of purchases of hardware based on consumption.
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 3 of 20

• The client has full control over the entire infrastructure.

• Highly customizable and scalable environment.
However, IaaS normally have higher security concerns over the other two models as
the client is responsible of building the infrastructure which could create some threats the
client isn’t aware of existence. Moreover, such models normally require additional training
for the workforce in order to learn how to effectively control and manage the infrastructure
including having to do additional tasks such as backup and update for the components of
the infrastructure.

1.2.2. Platform as A Service (PaaS)

This type of service model is all about providing an environment for users to deploy
host, test and develop software application by consumers. In this type of models, a third
party provider provide access to software and hardware tools to the user over the internet.
PaaS allow freedom to the users from having to install hardware and software in order to
develop their application moreover it could provide extra processing power that are hard
to be acquired by single user instead users here pay on per use basis for the tools. PaaS
provide the fallowing advantages:
• Cost effective and simple solution for development and deployment of apps.
• Unlimited scalability for the platform
• Automation of business policy
• Ease of migration toward hyper model.
However, some of the concerns related to PaaS is vendors lock-in where vendors
may decide to make some changes to the requirements or of some solutions in the future
without providing clear migration policies to the clients. Moreover, sometimes issues rise
when users of this model try to integrate and connect data stored within off-premises cloud
when using some components from legacy IT system.

1.2.3. Software as A Service (SaaS)

SaaS is one of the most common service model of cloud computing that many users
use on daily basis. This model is also known as cloud application services. In this model
applications are delivered to the users over the internet without the need for user to install
or update these applications. Moreover, most of the applications runs directly through the
browser which add extra layer of flexibility and convenient to users of such model. SaaS
provide the fallowing advantages:
• Cost effective solution to access to different applications without needing to update
the hardware.
• Verity of solutions and services available to the users with one click.
• No need to upgrade the software as the user will always have access to the most recent
version of the application.
• Ease of use.
However, SaaS has created several concerns, such as lack of integration support for
the application provided as a service with other applications that the users use locally.
Additionally, normally SaaS provide minimal customization capabilities to the user since
it’s normally provided as a one size fits all solution. Figure 1 shows the control level for
users for each service level as well as some examples.
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 4 of 20

Figure 1. Cloud services level compression.

2. Fog Computing Overview

Unlike traditional cloud computing, fog computing—also known as fogging—focuses
more on decentralization of the computer structure, located in between the devices that
produces the actual data and the cloud. In fog computing the focus is on lowering the cloud
computation capability to the edge of the network to be able to provide faster services to
the users including communication service and software services. This comes handy in
providing cloud solutions for high mobility technologies such as Internet of things (IoT)
and vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). Rather than having the devices connect through
complex network infrastructure in fog computing the devices are normally connected
directly to their destination. As a result, the connection will have much lower latency and
better quality of service.
The concept of fog computing was proposed by Cisco Systems. Fog computing system
was not introduced to replace cloud computing, rather it was introduced to fill the services
gaps of cloud computing [9,10]. According to Cisco Systems, fog computing is a virtual
platform that offers computation, storage and networking services to end devices from
cloud computing data centers which are not specifically located at the network edge. Fog
is different from cloud in a way that it has got end users closer to it as compared to cloud,
to provide them services and respond to their demands in less amount of time. In cloud
computing, computing, control and storage data are transported to the centralized cloud,
whereas in fog computing, central and local computing, storage, and network management
is balanced [11]. According to [12], fog computing is defined as a distributed computing
technology where maximum operations are performed by virtualized and non-virtualized
edge devices. It has some similar characteristics with cloud including non-latency aware
processing and ability to store useful data for a longer time period by existing between the
users and the cloud. The basic architecture of fog computing is similar to cloud computing,
but its lower layers contain special components that are able to detect rare time response
efficiently. Due to this feature, fog computing is used to control and improve health care
department, traffic pattern, parking system and much more. Fog computing consists of
disseminated framework consisting of a keen gadget that has certain application services
outside the system. In other words, it gives authority to the gadgets to handle their
associations and tasks any way they prefer best. Basically, fog computing is a focal layer
residing between the cloud and the equipment, possessing enhanced information handling,
investigation and capacity, which is achieved by reducing the amount of information to be
transferred to the cloud [13]. Fog computing provides an improved administration and
smooth client experience. It is basically a combination of hardware and software systems
which has the power to monitor, control, and analyze data with extremely low latency [14].
In addition, Fog computing does not provide a permanent storage. It reduces the load on
cloud by deleting unnecessary data into its computational storage, which also minimizes
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 5 of 20

the cost. Fog devices are slightly different from the cloud devices in terms of their position
and application for which they are installed.
Some of the differentiating factors include:
• If the deployment purpose of the device is customization of the end network services
or sensing some data then the device is categorized as a fog device, otherwise it is a
cloud device.
• If the device has limited computational capability and sensing ability, then it is classi-
fied as fog device.
Some of the features of fog computing include:
• Awareness regarding the location of edge.
• Very low latency.
• Mobility support.
• Real-time services.
• Good interactions.
• Heterogeneous nature.
• Inseparability.
Most users now demand running applications that require heavy computational
resources, which are beyond the processing capability of a mobile device, since it has
very low processing speed. Besides low computational power, energy also becomes
limited, since application processing are need to be offloaded to nearby cloud servers.
Task offloading solves the issue of computational processing, but it is not feasible for time
critical application. Hence, in such cases, the concept of fog computing is considered a
good solution. However, fog computing also has some limitations such as low resources as
compared to cloud, therefore, leading to high latency, energy consumption, load balancing,
data management, and security threats. Figure 2 shows the three paradigms and how
they interconnect.

Figure 2. Cloud, fog and edge interconnection.

3. Edge Computing Overview

In the past few years, there has been a change observed in the trend of computing
which is pushing the service of clouds towards the edge of the networks. In other words,
the computing operations and services are being shifted from network core to the network
edge. This emerging technology is referred to as edge computing. Edge computing is
different from fog computing technology with respect to the computing location. In fog
computing network, local area network (LAN) performs the job of a gateway, whereas in
an edge computing network, smart devices such as programmable automation controller
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(PACs) perform computing operations. The reason behind the evolution of edge comput-
ing concept is to overcome the high latency and energy consumption service issues of
Cloud computing, and allow low-latency computation offloading services for resource-
constrained devices and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Moreover, it also provides
the advantages of content caching and storage services which help in managing high
network traffic.
The key feature of edge computing include:
• Very low latency.
• Reduced bandwidth limit.
• Flexibility in deployment.
• Automation.
Edge computing is the main domain which covers a family of related technologies as
sub-domains such as cloudlet, mobile cloud computing, and multi-access edge computing.
All these sub-domains are based on the concept that computational resources should be
present at the edge where network encounters the real demand challenge, which leads to:
1. Gain of fast access to the computation resources by the end users.
2. Reducing the traffic load on network core significantly.
Recent estimation shows that in the coming few years, there will be a deployment
of tens of billions of Edge devices with exceptionally high processing speeds. This up-
coming paradigm is called mobile edge computing (MEC), also referred to as multi-access
edge computing (MEC) [13,15]. MEC is an emerging technology that provides storage
and mobile computing resources at the edge of the network, for easy accessibility to the
users and increase the efficiency of the edge computing [16]. It offers a low latency, high
bandwidth, and real-time service environment that users can enjoy without any computa-
tional complexity [17]. In MEC architecture, the cloudlets holding data, also referred to as
multitenant data centers, are placed near base stations (BSs) and access points (APs), so that
users can easily run real-time applications without any delay and complex computing, on
low-resource mobile devices with enhanced quality-of-service (QoS) [18]. Figure 3 shows
some of the applications for edge computing.

Figure 3. Edge computing applications.

While on the one hand, edge computing allows better experience and delay-free
services, on the other hand, it also faces numerous challenges such as delay, bandwidth
cost, high energy consumption, computational offloading, security, and quality of service
(QoS). Edge computing can provide many solutions for different fields including factory
floors, telecommunication companies and industrial automation.
Now that we have a good understanding of the concept of cloud computing, edge
computing and fog computing and the difference between each of them in the next chapter
we will discuss the security of both fog computing and edge computing and how their
unique characteristic highlighted new privacy and security issues.
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 7 of 20

4. Security and Privacy Issues of Fog Computing

In this chapter we will go over the security issues of fog computing. We will first
list possible attacks toward this technology fallowed by privacy issues that may face fog
computing. Noting that countermeasures are listed later on separate chapter.

4.1. Attacks in Fog Computing

Fog computing technology has set new records in the modern communication world
by resolving the major technical issues and complexities of cloud computing. However,
this technology is also prone to numerous security and privacy threats related to data and
services. Due to the varying characteristics of fog computing such as geo distribution,
mobility and heterogeneity, the existing security and privacy techniques of cloud com-
puting cannot operate in a fog computing network. Hence, new state-of-the-art security
mechanisms are required to deal with the security and privacy issues of fog computing.
Though, fog computing provides a number of advantages as compared to cloud computing
systems, but there exist some security issues which can generate hindrance in the path
of deploying modern systems using fog computing. There are many literature works
proposed by different authors stating the security issues prevailing in fog computing. In
some research papers, various security concerns are addressed whereas in others only a
particular aspect of fog applications/architecture security is discussed.
The author of [19] briefly discussed different security issues and tried to find out the
various challenging aspects related to the solutions of the fog environment with focus on
data computation issues in fog environment. In research work [20], the author presented
and analyzed the prevailing security and trust challenges with countermeasures proposed
for those challenges. The author of [6] stated the common security gaps in fog computing
network by comparing different surveys. In [21], author presented various security and
privacy issues. Various intrusion detection and authentication techniques are discussed
by the authors of [22]. The author of [23] gave a comprehensive overview of various trust
management techniques to verify their suitability with future IoT devices.
In paper [24], author gives an overview of the prevailing security issues and challenges
in fog computing. In [25], author discusses the various security and privacy issues in cloud
computing, edge computing, and fog computing technologies.
The fallowing are the main security threats that affect Fog computing:
(a) Forgery: It is a type of security threat where the attacker copies someone else’s
identity and behavior to deceive a security system or other people by producing fake
information. Due to its fake data packets, it can also degrade the network performance
by using network resources such as energy, storage and bandwidth.
(b) Tampering: In this security attack, the attackers of the network mischievously alter
the data to be transmitted. It is difficult to detect this attack since the mobility of user
and the wireless nature of the transmission medium may lead to failure or delay in
the data transmission.
(c) Spam: Spam refers to the unwanted data that is generated by the attackers including
fake data gathered from users and extra information. Spam leads to consumption of
important network resources, privacy breach and misleading.
(d) Sybil: Sometimes, the network attackers use fake identity to control the effectiveness
and performance of fog computing and affect the reliability of the nodes. This is
called Sybil attack. The attackers create such fake crowd-sensing reports which
are completely untrustworthy. Moreover, they are also able to expose the personal
information of a legitimate user.
(e) Jamming: In this type of attack, the network intruders generate a huge amount of data
packets to jam the transmission channels and occupy the resources for a longer time
period in order to prevent the legitimate users from having access to a reliable and
efficient transmission medium.
(f) Eavesdropping: In eavesdropping, the attacker listens to the confidential data of
genuine users from the transmission channel without them knowing. This attack
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 8 of 20

is very common if the encryption technique applied over the confidential data is
not efficient.
(g) Denial of Service (DoS): This is a type of attack is a famous attack that could affect
many environments including but not limited to fog computing in which fake data is
sent towards the fog nodes by attackers and these nodes are flooded with innumerous
fake requests so that they remain unavailable for the legitimate users. Such attacks
use up resources of the network such as bandwidth, battery, time, etc. which leads to
the performance degradation of fog network as they have limited resources.
(h) Man in the Middle: Man-in-the-middle is an attack where the attacker stands in
between the communicating nodes to overhear and steal the useful communication of
the genuine users without them knowing as they think the data is being exchanged
with the legitimate receivers directly. A temporary scenario is created by the attacker
in this case where he comes in between the communicating parties.
(i) Collusion: This type of security attack consists of a two or more groups that collude
cooperatively to mislead and cheat the legitimate users. In order to increase the impact
of the attack, these group trick and attack a group of fog nodes or IoT nodes or fog
nodes with IoT nodes or IoT nodes with cloud nodes.
(j) Impersonation: In impersonation attack, as the name shows, the attacker acts like a
genuine server to trick the legitimate users by offering fake or malicious services to
them to make them believe that they are communicating with the real fog node or
server. This way, the attacker steals all the confidential data from the legitimate user’s
system without their consent.
(k) Virtual Machine Attack: Virtual machine attack is an attack where a hacker secretly
takes control over the hypervisor that forms a virtual environment within a virtual
machine. There are 4 different modes of attack on a virtual machine: guest to host,
virtual machine to virtual machine manager, virtual machine to virtual machine, and
virtual machine manager outside attacks.
(l) Side-channel Attack: This is an attack in which the cryptography of the device is
unlocked by gathering information about the applied cryptographic algorithm.
(m) Session Hijacking: In session hijacking, the attacker intercepts and hijacks the user
session in order to get access to the user confidential data and services.
Table 1 shows several security attacks toward Fog computing with some related contribu-
tion related to these attacks in the literature.
Based on the type of security threat any fog computing attack land in one of three
fields which are network services where the attacker aims to modify the way the network
is formed or causing failure in delivery of packets in the network, Data processing attacks
which affect distribution, protection and content of the data in the network and finally
device privacy attacks where the attacker aim to affect the privacy of the actual device
including location, usage and identity privacy. Figure 4 shows the main three areas of
attacks in fog computing.

Figure 4. Security areas in fog computing.

Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 9 of 20

Table 1. security attack in fog computing with some researches contribution.

Security Attack Research Contribution

In [26], the authors suggested privacy preserving authentication scheme
Forgery
that provide access control which address the forgery attack.
In [27], the authors suggested reliable trust computing mechanism (RTCM)
Tampering based on fog computing fusion. Their suggested solution aims to provide
high level of integrity for the data in fog environment.
In [28], the authors suggested a Sybil attack detection mechanism for the
Sybil
cloud computing environment that also could be used with fog computing.
Jamming In [29], the authors discussed jamming issues in fog computing.
In [30], the author suggested some techniques that can detect and prevent
Eavesdropping
this type of attacks.
In [31], the authors provided a comprehensive overview of this type of
Denial of Service attacks and how they could affect fog computing. In [32], the author
suggested lightweight mechanism to mitigate this type of attacks.
Man-in-the- In [33], the author discussed this type of attack in fog computing and how
Middle it could be detected.
In [34], the authors identified different privacy framework to prevent this
Collusion
type of attacks.
In [32], the authors discussed this type of attacks and provided a technique
Impersonation
to prevent it.
Side Channel In [35], the author suggested a system with resistant to side channel attacks
Attack in fog computing.
In [36], the author discussed a way to prevent this type of attacks in fog
Session Hijacking
and edge environment.

4.2. Privacy Issues in Fog Computing

Privacy is becoming a serious challenge in fog computing as the confidential data
of users is exchanged, gathered, processed, and transmitted over fog nodes. Each user
wants its data to be safe and secure over the wireless medium but, unfortunately, it is
very difficult to preserve the privacy of user’s confidential data due to the presence of
malicious users and intruders in the network. It is very important to maintain privacy
from the perspectives of both user and the provider. As, the application processing of fog
computing is carried out in the user’s device, keeping the privacy of user’s information is
the first priority. According to [24,37], there are six major aspects of privacy issues:
(a) User Privacy: Fog computing network contains large number of IoT enabled devices
that are inter-connected via sensors or wireless system. The job of IoT devices is to
generate sensitive data and transmit it to fog nodes for processing. This sensitive data
includes personal information, smart home automated data, healthcare information,
business information, etc. and all of this data can be stolen by the intruder with a
weak security system.
(b) Identity Privacy: The identity of a user is extremely vulnerable of getting disclosed
while having authentication of fog nodes as each user has to provide their identity
related information to the nodes including name, phone number, home address,
passport number, license ID etc. in order to get verified.
(c) Data Privacy: The confidential data of a user can get exposed to a network attacker
who is trying to steal user’s personal data from the transmission medium or relay
nodes. This information consists of user’s personal address, preferences and political
data. For example, the online system of voting can put the political preference of users
at risk. The privacy of such data is very critical.
(d) Usage Privacy: Usage privacy refers to the pattern in which the user accesses the
services of the fog computing network. This pattern can help the intruder in know-
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 10 of 20

ing when a user is accessing the channel for data transmission and when he is not
communicating. On the basis of this pattern, the intruder launches an attack on the
user’s confidential information or the channel to make it appear as ‘busy’ for the
legitimate user.
(e) Location Privacy: Nowadays, each mobile application asks for access to device current
or saved location along with access to user mobile’s internal data such as gallery. Due
to this, the user has to sacrifice their location privacy in order to enjoy the internet
services. However, little do they know that their location privacy is extremely critical
information which if once obtained by the attacker can enable them to know the
trajectory of the user. Hence, the location privacy of a user must be kept secure at
all costs.
(f) Network Privacy: Wireless connections are always at risk due to security and privacy
attacks which is a highly considerable issue. Moreover, the maintenance of fog nodes
is also costly and challenging since they are present at the edge of the Internet, where
network configurations are carried out manually. Hence, privacy breach is not difficult
to occur. To resolve this issue, an encryption technique such as Home-Area Network
can be quite useful.
In Table 2, below, we have shown some of the privacy issues of fog computing net-
work [25] and the discussed privacy aspects:

Table 2. Privacy and issues in fog.

Sr. No. Privacy Aspects Privacy Issues

1. User Privacy Limited Network Visibility
2. Identity Privacy Inefficient Attack Detection techniques
3. Data Privacy Unavailability of user selective data collection
4. Usage Privacy Issues of Virtualization
5. Location Privacy Issues of Multitenancy
6. Network Privacy Suspected fog nodes

The next chapter will discuss security and privacy issues for edge computing in details.

5. Security and Privacy Issues of Edge Computing

Like fog computing, edge computing technology is also facing severe security chal-
lenges due to which the confidential data of users is at stake. In [38], the authors proposed
salable distributed machine learning approach to detect attacks towards edge computing
environment. In [39], the author surveys the existing security threats and privacy challenges
along with the cryptographic techniques and countermeasures in edge computing network.
We can summarize the main challenges of edge computing as fallow. First, normally
nodes of edge are connected to a very a large number of IoT devices which have a limited
resource in addition to different internal components this leads to having different types
of routing protocols to disseminate messages this difference in the components may lead
to some security issues. Which may lead to having several challenges in terms of access
control in IoT environment. Another challenge that rise some concerns regard security
in edge computing is key management of communications. While edge computing can
provide end to end communication of IoT devices relying on different routing protocols;
confidentiality and integrity of the data is still concerning. Therefore, a special key man-
agement and distribution mechanism may have to be designed to handle this concerns.
In research work [40], the author gives a detailed analysis of security challenges in edge
computing from five aspects: key management, access control, privacy protection, attack
mitigation and anomaly detection. Furthermore, this paper presents the work achieved in
edge computing security into five categories along with the current research situation in
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 11 of 20

these categories. In Table 3, we have shown a summary of the data security and privacy
challenges categorized with respect to the edge computing architecture [39].

Table 3. Security Attack in Edge Computing Architecture.

Core Side Edge Servers Edge Network Mobile Edge Devices

Challenges Privacy Leakage Privacy Leakage DoS Data Injection
Data Tampering DoS Man-in-the-middle Service Manipulation
DoS Privilege Escalation Rogue Gateway
Service Manipulation Service Manipulation
Rogue Data Center
Physical Damage

There are different factors that lead to security and privacy issues in edge computing
networks that put the user’s personal data at risk, as discussed below:
(a) In edge computing, edge nodes exist nearer to users which result in reception of large
amount of sensitive data. If any of these data are stolen, it can result in an alarming
consequences.
(b) Edge computing possess limited network resources, as compared to cloud computing,
due to which they do not support complex encryption algorithms.
(c) Edge computing network consists of dynamic environment which is constantly chang-
ing. As a result of this, attackers can easily become part of the group. Moreover, it is
very difficult to create security rules for such dynamic network.
The attacks on edge computing are as follows:
• Eavesdropping: Similar to the fog computing, the eavesdropping attack in edge
computing consists of an eavesdropper who can hide itself and maliciously monitor
the activity on the channel to steal or overhear the confidential data.
• Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks: Denial of service attack, just like in fog computing,
allows the intruder or hacker to take control over the system or network and make its
access unavailable for the legitimate user by sending a large amount of requests that
jam the network.
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack: It is an attack in which the goal of the
attacker is to interrupt the normal services provided by different servers on the basis of
distributed resources like cluster of compromised edge devices. This attack happens
when an attacker constantly sends innumerous packets towards the victim’s device
from the compromised distributed devices as a result of which exhausts the hardware
resources of the victim to handle any other packet and, therefore, fails to fulfill any
genuine request in time.
• Data Tampering Attack: In data tampering attack, the attacker can alter the data
transmitted over the communication channel or saved in the storage.
• Service Manipulation: It is an attack in which the adversary takes control over the
edge data center, and as a result it can misrepresent or alter the services.
• False Data Injection: False data injection is an attack in which the attacker injects a
false code in the network which gathers all the stored data from the database and
brings it to the attacker [39].
• Physical Attack: This attack occurs when the physical protection of the edge infrastructure
is weak or careless. Physical attack will affect the services in particular geographical areas
as the deployment of edge servers is distributed [39].
• Rogue Gateway: Rogue gateway is an attack launched by attackers where they inject
high traffic into the entire edge computing network infrastructure and the conse-
quences are the same as the man-in-the-middle attack.
In edge computing, if the invaders have acquired sufficient control privilege over the
edge data center, they can act as a genuine administrator or misrepresent the services. This
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 12 of 20

enables the invaders to launch several attacks on the network such as man-in-the-middle,
DoS, etc.
there are several privacy issues in edge computing include:
• Weak security techniques and algorithms for system protection which can increase
the vulnerability of the network that will pave way for the malicious users to invade
over the system or add external nodes to collect data in unauthorized manner.
• Unsafe communication sessions between devices.
• Difficult recovery and data backup when the system outage occurs.
• No specific pattern of update reception and implementation on the system.
• Lack of proper network visibility.
• Lack of user’s selective data collection.
Now that we have some good understanding and knowledge of the security and
privacy issues of both fog and edge computing the next chapter will illustrate some
countermeasures to handle such attacks and mitigate the risk caused by it.

6. Fog and Edge Computing Attacks Countermeasures

In this chapter we will discuss the countermeasure for the attacks that may affect fog
computing and edge computing in details starting with fog computing.

6.1. Countermeasures for Attacks in Fog Computing

Fog computing is currently at a beginner’s stage and there is still a long way to go
facing different challenges due to its unique features. It utilizes idle resources created by
user devices which are not examined carefully by any standard body, as a result of which
security and privacy concerns are raised in the fog network. Therefore, secure and fast
authentication mechanisms are need of the time for fog as many devices are part of the fog
application processing.
Some of the countermeasures proposed for mitigating the malicious attacks and
privacy issues include:
• Efficient Encryption Techniques: With the help of efficient encryption techniques, the
privacy issue can be resolved as the attackers will be unable to decode the complex
encryption algorithms. However, the developers should consider one fact while
developing an encryption technique that as technology is advancing, the attackers
are also getting equipped with modern systems and techniques. Hence, they are
always one step ahead of the developers as the modern technology would help them
to decode any encryption algorithm.
• Decoy Technique: It is a security technique that is used to authenticate the data of a
user present in the computing network. It replaces the original information with the
fake one which is then provided to the attackers. When an attacker causes a security
breach in the system, it finds a fake information file in place of the original file. This
file is known as the decoy file and the proposed method is called as decoy technique.
The decoy files are formed in the start to ensure improved security. The system hides
the original data, which can only be accessed by the authenticated users, and replaces
it with the decoy file by default for system intruders.
• In [41], the author proposes a data privacy preserving technique in fog computing
network by using decoy technique. This technique is split into two steps where in the
first stage, both verified and the unverified users will be provided decoy data file by
default. Furthermore, in the second step, the verified user will be given access to the
original data file in the system by passing all the security authentication challenges.
When any abnormal activity is observed in the network, the system quickly generates
a decoy file in the network with the help of decoy technique which is then sent towards
the intruder looking same as the original file. The decoy file contains fake and bogus
data. The legitimate user will identify the fake information right away, whereas the
attacker will be confused with it.
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 13 of 20

• Modified Decoy Technique: It is a modified version of the original decoy technique in

which the attackers are given fake data and nodes which are run by the attackers and
in the meantime, information regarding identity (such as Mac address) is collected by
the hidden files.
• Intrusion Detection System (IDS): Intrusion detection system (IDS) is employed in
fog computing to detect and protect from attacks including DoS, insider attacks, port
scanning attacks, flooding attacks on virtual machine, man-in-the-middle attacks,
hypervisors and many other [42]. To secure the fog system, a perimeter IDS system is
deployed that is able to coordinate different IDS in the fog system [43]. However, it
can create several challenges as well for ensuring delay-less requirements. The author
of [44] proposes an Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDPS) mechanism to deal
with the man-in-the-middle attacks in the fog network. This mechanism consists of
IDS nodes that detect any anomaly happening in the network by monitoring it after
regular time intervals. In case of a malicious node detection, that node is isolated from
the network.
• Authentication Schemes: Authentication allows verification of user’s identity by
verifying user’s given credentials that whether they match with information present
in the database through an authentication server. This help in defending against
the intrusions of malicious entities. Fog computing network enables users to access
the fog services from the fog infrastructure if the user is well authenticated from the
system first in order to be a part of the network processing infrastructure. In case of an
unsecure authentication scheme, the entire cloud, fog nodes, and user’s device can be
caused harm by network attackers, which is one of the significant security concerns.
• In research work [45], author proposes a secure mutual authentication scheme for fog
computing, that enables authentication of any fog user with the fog nodes mutually
in a fog network. The author of [46] proposes a multi-tier authentication technique
that allows secure Login in fog computing.
• Blockchain Security for Fog Computing: The concept of blockchain was introduced
for secure cryptocurrency application of Bitcoin. However, with the passage of time,
the researchers realized that blockchain can also be used to secure cloud and fog
computing networks with its extraordinary security features. Therefore, the security
of fog environment can be enhanced by employing blockchain technique. Given below
are some useful blockchain feature with context of fog computing [41]:
– Reduces failure of single point.
– Allows network transaction with highly secure encryption algorithm.
– Capable of tracking node status efficiently.
– Immutable technology.
Blockchain technology can prevent various malicious attack in fog network including
man-in-the-middle attack, DoS attack and data tampering [47,48].
In Table 4, we have summarized the countermeasure used for securing and preserving
the privacy of fog computing environment.

Table 4. Security attacks and privacy-preserving countermeasures.

Countermeasures Brief Description

With efficient encryption techniques, the privacy issue can be resolved as
Efficient
the attackers will be unable to decode the complex encryption algorithms.
Encryption
the authors of [49] discussed the topic of encryption and how to apply it to
Techniques
fog environment.
It is a security technique that is used to authenticate the data of a user
present in the computing network by replacing the original information
Decoy Technique with the fake one which is then provided to the attackers. The authors
of [50] suggested a method that deal with decoy techniques with the help
of user profiling.
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 14 of 20

Table 4. Cont.

Countermeasures Brief Description

It is employed in fog computing to detect and protect from attacks
including DoS, insider attacks, port scanning attacks, flooding attacks on
Intrusion Detection
virtual machine, man-in-the-middle attacks, hypervisors etc.the authors
System
of [51] proposed a lightweight intrusion detection system based on a vector
space representation using a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) model.
It allows verification of user’s identity by verifying user’s given credentials
that whether or not they match with information present in the database
Authentication
through an authentication server. In [52], the authors proposed a secure
Schemes
identity based anonymous authentication scheme for mobile
edge computing.
Blockchain allows network transaction with highly secure encryption
Blockchain algorithm and reduces failure of single point. In [53], the authors
Security discuessed integration of blockchain with edge computing and the
challenges facing such integration.

6.2. Countermeasures for Attacks in Edge Computing

Since Edge computing as illustrated in this paper have special features different
security solutions preformed on cloud computing service cannot be effective with edge
computing some of proposed solutions that lands with the unique characteristics of edge
computing are:
• Edge Node Security: Same level of security must be applied on all nodes of the
edge network to ensure proper safety protocols. In case of different security levels,
the attacker may break through the node having weak security algorithm causing
system’s degradation. Moreover, different security levels can also cause trouble for the
system operators in determining which node has weak security barrier that allowed
security breach.
• Full-time Monitoring: In order to secure a network from malicious users, it is necessary
to constantly keep an eye on all the edge nodes and provide network visibility to the
users in an interactive interface.
• Proper Encryption: With the advance in modern technology, new state-of-the-art
encryption algorithms are being proposed that are very complex to decode. These
algorithms consist of a secret key which is properly secured and shared between the
legitimate sender and receiver. This secret key allows the genuine users to decrypt the
algorithm and access the data.
• Intrusion Detection System: It is a system which informs the user about any anomaly
or unauthorized access it detects in the system.
• User Behavior Profiling: User behavior profiling refers to the observation, monitoring
and maintenance of general behavior of the users so that any activity different from
the normal behavior will help in determining the presence of a malicious user. Hence,
the users will be informed about the abnormal activity.
• Cryptographic Techniques: Cryptographic techniques are being proposed to deal
with the security attacks launched by hackers and intruders. These techniques mostly
consists of a secret key that is only shared between the sender and the receiver.
This secret key is used to decrypt the received message. If an intruder succeeded
in acquiring this secret key from the transmitted packets over the communication
channel then he would be able to steal the data in the message.
• Data Confidentiality: To deal with the different privacy issues that are caused by the
illegal data operations, loss of data, data manipulation, data breach etc. by network
attackers, various data confidentiality mechanism are proposed based on encryption
algorithms. In paper [54], the author proposes a privacy-preserving mechanism named
as QueryGuard that is a latency-aware query optimization technique. This technique
achieves two fold objective: first is that it tackles the privacy-aware distributed
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 15 of 20

query processing issue and second is that it optimizes the queries for delay-free
communication. It achieves better performance results in terms of computation time,
memory usage as compared to conventional query optimization schemes.
In survey [55], the author gives a comprehensive overview of the most basic attacks
in edge computing including DoS, DDoS, side channel attack, malware injection attacks,
etc. along with the defense mechanisms that can be applied in edge computing network.
The author of [56] formulated a detection scheme for side-channel attacks that can detect
the abnormal cache activity on edge servers. Numerous other defense mechanisms are
proposed for edge networks but, unfortunately, the existing security and privacy-preserving
mechanisms are unable to be employed in edge computing network due to its mobility,
large number of edge nodes, and dynamic environment.
These mechanism run well for cloud computing but provide inefficient results in case
of edge computing. Privacy for edge nodes needs adaptive frameworks that can dynami-
cally choose the most suitable privacy scheme based on the communication environment
and edge nodes involved [57]. Hence, this area of communication still needs a large amount
of research and consideration. Table 5 shows main security attacks and some possible
privacy-preserving countermeasures in edge computing.

Table 5. Security attacks and privacy-preserving countermeasures in edge.

Countermeasures Brief Description

Same level of security must be applied on all nodes of the edge network to
Edge Node
ensure proper safety protocols. In case of different security levels, the
Security
attacker may break through the node having weak security algorithm.
Full-time It refers to constantly keep an eye on all the edge nodes and provide
Monitoring network visibility to the users in an interactive interface.
It involves a complex algorithm or a secret key which is properly secured
Proper Encryption and shared between the legitimate sender and receiver that allows the
genuine users to decrypt the algorithm and access the data.
Intrusion Detection It is a system which informs the user about any anomaly or unauthorized
System access it detects in the system.
It refers to the observation, monitoring and maintenance of general
User Behavior
behavior of users so that any activity apart from the normal behavior will
Profiling
determine the presence of an attacker.
Cryptographic These techniques are used to deal with the security attacks launched by
Techniques hackers and intruders by using a secret key.
This mechanisms deal with different privacy issues that are caused by the
Data
illegal data operations, loss of data, data manipulation, data breach etc. by
Confidentiality
network attackers.

7. Future of Fog and Edge Computing and How That Will Affect IoT and Smart Cities
Fog and edge computing technologies are going to revolutionize the current picture
of the wireless communication networks, with their efficiency, effectiveness, delay-free
services, real-time applications and performance enhancement capabilities. Not only this,
but these technologies are also expected to increase the performance efficiency and service
delivery of other technologies such as IoT.
IoT technology has received immense attention not only from the academic side but
from the industrial side as well. It is basically the upcoming new era of ‘connectivity
everywhere’. According to the author of [58], it is estimated that more than 20 billion
devices would be connected by the end of 2020 that will be present in various business
organization, industrial departments and consumer side. As per the article [59], there will
be more than 21 billion devices connected by the year 2025. As the technology is advancing,
the IoT is flourishing at a great pace with increased number of sensors that are assigned to
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 16 of 20

various devices to efficiently handle the large amount of data being generated and store it
on regular basis.
The applications of IoT require cloud technology for processing. However, as the
number of IoT devices is increasing, so is the data being generated by them due to which
the IoT devices can no longer depend on any central entity such as cloud computing to
perform processing of such large amount of data, rather it requires a technology that can
not only handle its large amount of data and service applications but also manage and
control numerous sensors, actuators, device users, operations and connectivity by bringing
processing facilities nearer to users. The traditional cloud computing is unable to solve
the issues related to time sensitivity and connectivity. Whereas in IoT, there are large
number of areas where even a delay of a microsecond can cause huge consequences like in
the field of telemedicine, healthcare centers, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, security
departments and many more. Hence, fog computing is being considered to be a better
choice for employing with IoT technology.
The devices present on the edge generate data from their allotted areas and transmit to
nearest fog nodes for analysis and decisions. The advantage of using fog computing is that
it can manage IoT devices along with solving the processing limitations of time-sensitive
applications in cloud computing. Fog nodes exist at the edge of the network to serve
edge users with high quality services and zero delay. This allows real-time processing,
storage and networking facilities to be provided to the users at edge level. IoT offers
a number of suitable solutions for application such as waste management, smart traffic
signal system, logistic control system, emergency services and industrial area. The two
most attractive fields of IoT are smart healthcare devices and wearable sensors. Due to
the ability of edge processing of fog computing technology, it has various functionalities
in smart application such as smart healthcare system, smart transportation system, smart
city, smart homes, smart vehicle, augmented and virtual reality and many other smart
real-time applications. Fog computing technology is highly being employed in healthcare
departments because the data generated by healthcare applications is time-sensitive which
requires quick processing. The author of [60] proposed a smart healthcare system based on
fog to control the occurrence of Chikungunya virus. In this system, the wearable IoT sensor
collected health data and medical data of the patient. According to [61], many challenges
of IoT can be resolved with fog computing technology, as shown in Table 6.

Table 6. Summary of IoT challenges and fog solutions.

Challenges in IoT Solution Offered by Fog

Fog network is able to scan malware and determine the security status
Security Challenge of surrounding IoT devices. It is also able to act as proxy to update
software and detect threats timely.
Delay Constraints Fog can perform various time-sensitive computation tasks.
Network Bandwidth Fog enables hierarchical data processing for transferring data from
Constraints cloud to IoT devices.
Fog promises uninterrupted services even if there is some
Uninterrupted Services
connection issue.
Resource Constrained Fog is able to reduce device complexity, cost and consumption of
Devices power when certain operations cannot be delivered to the cloud.

8. Conclusions
In this paper, we discussed and surveyed the security and privacy aspects of two new
paradigms of cloud computing which are fog computing and edge computing. Unlike
cloud computing, fog and edge computing have special characteristic that lead to having
some new security and privacy concerns. We showed different type of attacks that are
shared between the two technologies such as shared resources and DDoS attacks as well
as some of the unique attacks for each environment. We also provided in this paper
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 17 of 20

some possible countermeasures that could mitigate some of the listed attacks. Through
researching the vulnerability of these technologies we found that the security aspect of
the two technologies are far from satisfied yet and there is a lot of potential research areas
to be covered. In Table 7, we conclude a list of the main threats for the two technologies
in addition to referring some work in the literature that discussed these threats and the
attacks related to these threats. In [62], the authors suggested a pattern for fog computing
that in our opinion could be enhanced and add security patterns to it to create a security
reference architecture for fog computing.

Table 7. Main threats of fog and edge computing and related researches.

Threat Related Description Related Resources

• In [63], the authors suggested a solution that could be applied to
Fog computing where data get encrypted at the fog end using
attribute-based encryption and multiple policies.
• In [64], the authors suggested a solution that could be applied to
Fog computing where data get encrypted at the fog end using
This includes all attacks that give the
Access attribute-based encryption and multiple policies.
attacker access to sensitive or private data
control • In [65], the authors proposed a policy based management of
in unauthorized manner.
resources in fog computing to support secure collaboration
between different users without interference.
• In [45], the authors proposed a secure authentication method
that could be applied to fog and edge environment which allow
authenticating users mutually in the network.
In this type of attacks fake data is sent • In [31], the authors suggested reinforcement learning methods to
Denial of towards the fog nodes by attackers and mitigate Denial of service attacks towards edge servers.
service these nodes are flooded with innumerous • In [66], the authors discussed using blockchain as a service in
(DOS) fake requests so that they remain order to defend Denial of service this solution could be applied
unavailable for the legitimate users. to Fog computing.
• In [67], the authors suggested using identify mechanisms and
This type of attacks includes all attacks
intrusion detection system for edge computing in order to
related to virtual machine including
countermeasures attacks aimed toward virtual machines in edge
shared resources attacks where attackers
computing such as creating fake edge service.
Virtualization try to take over some of the resources in
• In [68], the authors suggested a secure migration mechanism for
threats unauthorized manner as well as
virtual machine.
migration attacks where attacker try to
• In [69], the authors discussed several issues that face
compromise the virtual machine during
virtualization the hardware that could apply to fog and edge
migration process.
computing.
• In [22], the authors discussed Rogue Fog devices and how they
This includes all attacks where attackers could create a threat toward the environment.
gain a trust allowing them to • In [63], The authors proposed a reputation system model that
communicate with different nodes and could be applied to both edge and fog environment through
Trust Man-
establish unauthorized connection to the applying distributed pooling algorithm to check validity of the
agement
network. Some examples of such attacks model and communications.
are: Self-promotion attack, Bad-mounting • In [70], the authors proposed a lightweight trust evaluation
attack and on-off attack. mechanism to employ fusion of multi sourced feedback in order
to evaluate trust level in the environment.

Funding: This research was funded by Sensor Networks and Cellular Systems Research Center in
University of Tabuk grant number 002/1442 H.
Acknowledgments: The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of SNCS Research Center at
the University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Sensors 2021, 21, 8226 18 of 20

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