Cybersecurity Guidance for Smart Homes: A Cross-National Review of Government Sources

TL;DR

This study reviews government cybersecurity guidance for smart homes across eleven countries, revealing abundant preventive advice but scarce structured incident response guidance for users after cyber incidents.

Contribution

It systematically characterizes and compares governmental guidance on smart home cybersecurity, highlighting gaps in post-incident support and response strategies.

Findings

Governments provide extensive general security advice.

Accessible incident reporting channels are common.

Structured incident response guidance is rare.

Abstract

Smart homes are increasingly targeted by cyberattacks, yet residents often lack guidance when incidents occur. Since affected residents are likely to seek help from trustworthy sources, this paper asks: What actionable cybersecurity guidance do governments provide to smart home users whose systems have been compromised? To answer this question, we conduct an exploratory, user-centered review of governmental cybersecurity guidance for smart homes across eleven countries to identify and characterize the types of guidance governments provide and to systematize their content. Using a standardized search and screening process, we derive three emergent clusters: incident reporting, general security recommendations, and incident response. Our findings show that governments provide abundant general security advice and accessible reporting channels, but structured incident response guidance tailored to smart homes is rare. Only two sources offer step-by-step recovery guidance for non-expert users, highlighting a gap between preventive advice and post-incident support.