Analysis of Human Awareness of Security and Privacy Threats in Smart Environments

TL;DR

This paper reviews security and privacy risks in smart environments, emphasizing human factors and stakeholder roles, and discusses future threats related to ICT integration and networking.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of how human and stakeholder factors contribute to security vulnerabilities in smart environments and envisions future threats.

Findings

Stakeholder roles influence security vulnerabilities.

Human aspects are critical in understanding threats.

Future risks involve advanced ICT and networking challenges.

Abstract

Smart environments integrate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into devices, vehicles, buildings and cities to offer an increased quality of life, energy efficiency and economical sustainability. In this perspective, the individual has a core role and so has networking, which enables such entities to cooperate. However, the huge amount of sensitive data, social aspects and the mixed set of protocols offer many opportunities to inject hazards, exfiltrate information, mass profiling of citizens, or produce a new wave of attacks. This work reviews the major risks arising from the usage of ICT-techniques for smart environments, with emphasis on networking. Its main contribution is to explain the role of different stakeholders for causing a lack of security and to envision future threats by considering human aspects.