Threat Analysis in Dynamic Environments: The Case of the Smart Home

Abstract

The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies has fostered the development and deployment of complex interrelated systems, many of which also present highly dynamic operational characteristics. These are further integrated within highly connected environments such as smart cities, smart homes, and smart cars, continuously adopting new technological developments. In this article, we focus on the smart home environment, as a case study for such ecosystems, where the integration of IoT devices increases the attack surface, evaluating whether existing risk assessment methods can be utilized for the identification and monitoring of risks, while also capturing the dynamic operational aspects. Accordingly, we review existing dynamic risk assessment methodologies and we leverage a smart home reference architecture to identify the security threats of a smart home's physical and communication viewpoints by leveraging the STRIDE methodology and Microsoft's threat modelling tool.