Smart Home, security concerns of IoT

TL;DR

This paper discusses the security challenges of IoT in smart homes, highlighting vulnerabilities like weak passwords and unencrypted communication, and proposes solutions including strong authentication, SDN, IDS, HTTPS, VPN, and auto-configuration for improved security.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of IoT security issues in smart homes and suggests practical countermeasures, including an auto-configuration approach to enhance security and ease installation.

Findings

Weak passwords and unencrypted communication are major vulnerabilities.

Countermeasures like strong authentication and SDN can mitigate threats.

Auto-configuration can improve security and ease device setup.

Abstract

The IoT (Internet of Things) has become widely popular in the domestic environments. People are renewing their homes into smart homes; however, the privacy concerns of owning many Internet connected devices with always-on environmental sensors remain insufficiently addressed. Default and weak passwords, cheap materials and hardware, and unencrypted communication are identified as the principal threats and vulnerabilities of IoT devices. Solutions and countermeasures are also provided: choosing a strong password, strong authentication mechanisms, check online databases of exposed or default credentials to mitigate the first threat; a selection of smart home devices from reputable companies and the implementation of the SDN for the Dos/DDoS threat; and finally IDS, HTTPS protocol and VPN for eavesdropping. The paper concludes dealing with a further challenge, "the lack of technical support", by which an auto-configuration approach should be analysed; this could both ease the installation/maintenance and enhance the security in the self configuration step of Smart Home devices.