Cybersecurity of Farm and Companion Animal Technologies

Summary
This project aims to study the security and privacy issues relating to novel technologies that are increasingly being applied to farm and companion animals. Although, this rapidly growing industry has already introduced cyber security risks to both animals and their owners, it remains an under-researched field. I will identify the vulnerabilities in such systems. Then I will propose secure solutions for them with a focus on one or more technologies; sensor-enabled wearables, tracking technologies, environmental sensors, and feed/water monitoring.
Technology and risks
The variety of the technologies offered by the industry for farm and companion animals is expanding. This includes, but not limited to: sensor-enabled wearables, tracking technologies, outdoor cameras, environmental sensors, feed/water monitoring, etc. In essence, they all collect, process, retain and broadcast data about the animal and its surroundings. More high-tech systems are constantly being developed in order to improve the animal health and in the case of farm animals, production. However, security and privacy features are often barely considered.
Possible attacks against farm animals include: stealing the heard health data to damage finance/reputation; manipulating environmental temperature to harm the poultry production; and service interruptions on remote access tools by a competitor. Possible attacks against companion animals are: stealing pet microchip info e.g. address for spamming/phishing attacks; manipulating the feeding/ medicine system to harm the pet; and DoS/ransomware attacks to lock the animals in or out of home.
Goal
I aim to: O1) evaluate, systematize, and contextualize existing knowledge on cyber security of technology applied to farm and companion animals, O2) identify the real-world risks and threats to this technology both to animals and their owners O3) implement proof-of-concept attacks in real-world and simulated settings and O4) design secure solutions with a focus on the security of one or more technologies.
Impact
This project will bring multiple disciplines together: Agriculture, Cybersecurity, and Veterinary. Despite its rapid growth, animal technologies have not been analysed for their security and privacy; putting animals, farms, owners, and consequently wider society (through e.g. the food chain) at risk. The outcome of this project will impact multiple stakeholders by providing secure solutions.
Methodology
I will conduct a SoK survey on the technologies available for farm and companion animals. I will then assess the security and privacy features offered by academia and industry and in particular from two aspects: the animals and their owners. Accordingly, I will acquire off-the-shelf technologies to study their security and privacy features.
I will then identify the vulnerabilities and risks posed to these systems, performing proof-of-concept attacks on these devices and systems. In particular, I will perform: side channel attacks on sensors (e.g. motion, GPS, NFC, and ambient), and man-in-the-middle attacks on NFC chipsets. Via these attacks, I will be able to extract sensitive data about the animals (e.g. health information) and their owners (e.g. their address).
Finally, I will assess the possibility of employing different methods (e.g. light weight cryptographic algorithm, distance bounding protocols, etc.) as secure solutions for farm and companion animal technologies. In particular, I will focus on preventing the attacks discussed above in my solution by using light crypto algorithms.