Protecting Smart Home: Attack Scenarios, Risks & Threat Modeling

With the development of technologies and IT solutions people tend to build smart homes for faster, easier, simpler, and greater control of smart devices. IoT is the most used technology in today's life, and it brings both efficiency and convenience for better life quality. On the other hand, these smart homes come with some security challenges and risks that could affect the overall smart system either by affecting the reading of the sensors used, the data recorded and stored, the data transmitted via the internet, or taking control of the whole system, by taking advantage of the technologies inside the home itself and exploit its vulnerabilities. Along with the growth of the smart home market, many possible attacks may occur using different ways and techniques to compromise home privacy and security. The difficulty lies in establishing how to manage and control the growing number of different appliances to create a more secure and pleasant home effectively and simply. We used different sensors to create a low-cost smart home and an IDS. We identified attack scenarios and performed risk and threat modeling. Additionally, data collection demonstrating the attack simulation through testing the various sensors employed in this prototype has been made available.