# IoT Privacy and Security Challenges for Smart Home Environments
###### Abstract  
Often the Internet of Things (IoT) is considered as a single problem domain, with proposed solutions intended to be applied across a wide range of applications. However, the privacy and security needs of critical engineering infrastructure or sensitive commercial operations are very different to the needs of a domestic Smart Home environment. Additionally, the financial and human resources available to implement security and privacy vary greatly between application domains. In domestic environments, human issues may be as important as technical issues. After surveying existing solutions for enhancing IoT security, the paper identifies key future requirements for trusted Smart Home systems. A gateway architecture is selected as the most appropriate for resource-constrained devices, and for high system availability. Two key technologies to assist system auto-management are identified. Firstly, support for system auto-configuration will enhance system security. Secondly, the automatic update of system software and firmware is needed to maintain ongoing secure system operation.  
Internet of Things; cybersecurity; Smart Home +
Footnote †: journal: Information Information  
2008, the US National Intelligence council listed the Internet of Things as one of \"six technologies with potential impacts on US interests out to 2025\" [6].  
While debate still continues about the depth of impact and the rate of adoption of IoT technology into the next decade, it is clear that there are many areas where IoT penetration is rapid and disruptive. One emerging area of interest which is investigated in this paper is in the application of IoT to the Smart Home.  
Like all areas of networked computing, security and privacy are primary requirements for trusted system operation in the Internet of Things. Many of the principles applied to safety critical systems and enterprise security are equally applicable to IoT security. However, while enterprises can dedicate specific professional resources to system security, and to system architecture designs, the Smart Home is often a relatively ad hoc system without dedicated system management resources, and without deep technical knowledge on the part of the householder. This presents particular challenges to security and privacy. Proposed solutions go some way to address security concerns, but there are still areas where further work is needed. The two main contributions of the paper are to summarize existing network techniques that can be used to secure Smart Homes, and then to present two areas of particular concern (system auto-configuration and security updates) where further work is needed.  
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, a short introduction to privacy and security issues is given. In Section 3, the range of different application areas in which IoT technology is having an impact will be explored to show that IoT is not a \"one-size-fits-all\" technology set, and particular emphasis will be placed on IoT as applied to Smart Home applications. Section 4 describes security threats and vulnerabilities in the Smart Home, and Section 5 presents some existing solutions. Section 6 justifies our preferred system architecture and Section 7 presents our future research directions, before some final conclusions are drawn in Section 8.