# Security Risk Analysis of LoRaWAN and Future Directions
## 2 Related Work
Especially, as discussed in [4], LoRaWAN has the best interference immunity characteristics among other LPWAN solutions (e.g., Sigfox). However, as mentioned in [27], novel jamming attacks, such as selective-jamming, can still be successful against LoRaWAN, and these will affect the availability of the network. [PERSON] et al. [28] proposed methods to improve the capacity of a LoRaWAN v1.0 network under inter-network interference situation. According to their results, DER has been improved by 33% using directional antennas, and 133% by using additional gateways. Therefore, if the LoRaWAN network is to be used in a hostile environment where jamming or inter-network interference is a relevant problem, these proposed methods can be used to enhance the availability of the network. [PERSON] [29] has presented several vulnerabilities of LoRaWAN v1.0. This author proposes what is referred to as \"bit-flipping attack\", consisting of a \"man-in-the-middle attack\" in which an attacker modifies the messages in between the NS and the application server. Hence, assuming that the communications between these servers are not secured; LoRaWAN v1.0 is susceptible to this kind of attack. Under the same assumption, the vulnerability is still valid for LoRaWAN v1.1, in which several additional servers might exist. Surprisingly, [PERSON] et al. [30] proposed the usage of block-chain technology, in order to increase the trust value of LoRaWAN v1.0 technology. They argued that the block-chain can be used among several \(NS\)'s to verify each data transaction. In LoRaWAN, the main aim of the design is decreasing the cost while maintaining some level of security and trust. Besides, in LoRaWAN (in both versions), all servers are assumed to be trusted, hence there is no verification of the data transactions in between the servers is required. Although this might be a weak point of the architecture, conventional Secret-Key-Cryptography encryption algorithms might be used in between the servers of LoRaWAN in order to make certain that end-to-end security is provided. [PERSON] et al. 's work [31] addressed security issues of LoRaWAN v1.0 and offered some remedies by proposing a key management approach. The proposed approach is based on a variation of the Diffie Hellman approach and declared as a convenient solution due to its flexibility in the session key updates, its less computational cost along with fewer message exchange requirements. However, the proposal does not work with the latest version of LoRaWAN (v1.1). Therefore, their work needs to be expanded and revisited, considering the significant security improvements included in v1.1. For enhancing the privacy of the users in LoRaWAN v1.0, [PERSON] et al. [32] proposed a solution to prevent a malicious network server from breaking the end-to-end security between _Application Server_ and _End-Device_. Although the proposed protocol might be applicable to v1.0 of LoRaWAN, authors did not consider application and inclusion of new version of LoRaWAN (v1.1) which is completely different from v1.0 in terms of network architecture and also messaging (refer to Section 3 for further details on LoRaWAN v1.1). Therefore, the proposal will be useless for the LoRaWAN v1.1. [PERSON] et al. surveyed papers related to LoRaWAN technology [33] and provided SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis accordingly. They stressed many strengths and opportunities of this technology along with weaknesses and threats when compared with other IoT enabling technologies. According to their findings, LoRaWAN main strengths are; (1) Offering cheap end devices and possibilities of deploying private networks, (2) Removing the need for service subscription such as the one in SigFox or NB-IoT, (3) Decreasing the operational costs for dense IoT deployments, (4) Having large coverage with single gateway, and finally (5) Providing low power operation for end nodes.