Identifying Vulnerabilities in Security and Privacy of Smart Home Devices

Abstract

Smart Home Devices (SHDs) offer convenience that comes at the cost of security and privacy. SHDs can be subject to attacks and they can be used to conduct attacks on businesses or governments providing services to individuals. In this paper, we report vulnerabilities that have been published in research papers in IEEE Xplore digital library and ACM digital library. We followed a systematic approach to search for vulnerabilities in the literature, analyzed them and placed them in common categories. The study resulted in 153 vulnerabilities. The categories are based on the place of occurrence or component of smart home architecture, such as device, protocol, gateway, network, and software architecture. We also identified areas of research and development that have been underexplored in the past and need further efforts. Researchers, developers and users will benefit from this comprehensive analysis and systematic categorization of smart home vulnerabilities.