A UPnP extension for multilevel security in pervasive systems

In pervasive environments security and privacy has become a critical concern, since personal information can be available to malicious users. In this context, user authentication and service access control are some of major drawbacks in UPnP architecture, which are not suitable for pervasive environments. Moreover, the inherited heterogeneity of pervasive environments brings different security and privacy requirement concerns depending on the environment and the services provided. In this paper introduces a UPnP extension that not only allows multilevel user authentication for pervasive UPnP services, but also provides a flexible security approach that adapts to the network. What is more, it offers a seamless security level negotiation protocol¹.