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IoT networks are transitioning towards greener underlying technologies. In smart cities environments, while some devices are already sustainable with rechargeable batteries and energy harvesting hardware, many still rely on traditional non-sustainable components. This partial sustainable Internet of Things (IoT) network poses a research challenge, since the profile of sustainable nodes aims for neutral or self-powered operation, which may conflict with the energy-saving goals of traditional non-sustainable nodes. In this challenging scenario, it is essential to share Energy Information (EI), i.e. battery state-of-charge, among the nodes to efficiently manage energy resources. However, EI sharing is valuable data for attackers to perform energy-based attacks, exploiting the most vulnerable nodes in smart cities. To tackle these problems, this article presents the Dual Energy PROfile for interNet-of-thiNgs with Enhanced Security (DEPRONN-ES), which is a solution designed to support partially sustainable networks, i.e. traditional and sustainable nodes, and applies differential privacy to enhance data privacy levels of the EI sharing. The performed evaluation shows the proposed solution is able to reduce the success rate of attacks in 87% and its effectiveness in terms of consumed resources of the attacked node. Besides, DEPRONN-ES is able to support conflicting profiles to operate in distinct energy consumption levels. This framework utilized emulation of IoT devices and real data traces of indoor light intensity measurements provided by Columbia University as a harvesting source of the rechargeable batteries of sustainable nodes.
Santo et al. (2025) studied this question.