Smart home and legal safeguard against cyber threat: A review

• Main Authors: Basarudin, Noor Ashikin, Yeon, Asmah Laili, Mohamed Yusoff, Zuryati, Md Dahlan, Nuarrual Hilal, Mahdzir, Nazli
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/24547/1/SICONSEM%202017%2084%2086.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/24547/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Purpose - Smart home concept development is still in its infancy, however, its advantages in users’ life have widely discussed all over the nation. Despite its role in preserving energy and environment (Reinisch et al., 2010), making life convenient and easier (Robles et al., 2010), for the safety and security purpose(Ding et al., 2011), as well as providing healthcare (Chan et al.,2008) to the inhabitants, being a connected house which relies fully on the internet connection is opened up to various threat in cyber aspect.Thus, this paper conducted a review of past literature regarding the trend of cyber threats that occur in a smart home concept and the methods of prevention that have been taken either approach in computer technology or in legal method. Methodology - This paper conducts a review on the information related to the concept of smart home and the issues revolving its susceptibility to cyber threat. Preliminary search was conducted using the search engines, google scholars and online journal database.The key term searched relevant to the topic includes ‘smart home technology system’, ‘smart home and cyber threat’, ‘smart grid attacks’, and ‘Internet of Things’. Finding of the searches were segmented according to the sub topic to be discussed thoroughly. Findings - Although there is no definite answer to what is exactly smart home should be, for the purpose of this study, author stick to the concept of a home whereby it should comprise of the digitally connected and controlled devices (Alam et al., 2012) within a house, equipped with sensors, actuators and cloud services that support automation (Aldrich, 2003), as well as control hubs to connect sensors and actuators from multiple entry points like touch pads, computer screens, telephones, and other wireless mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets (Rodden & Benford, 2003). Smart home environment consist of internet-enabled gadget embedded in a house to share information between each other to allow the devices functioning process dubbed with Internet of Things (Tzezana, 2017). The Internet of Things as a method of today’s communication links the internet with sensors and devices to enable the connection of physical and virtual object through the exploitation of data communication (Atzori et al., 2010). Smart technology is viewed as a system or account susceptible to hack due to its open system that may expose to eavesdropping, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, attack against authentication (Li et al., 2016), hacking activity, data stolen and data manipulation. Attack on the system will bring greater problem that leads to data intrusion and privacy issues. Thus, the interconnecting of various devices in smart home demand control of data from being manipulated, hacked or misused by hackers through the introduction of policies and regulations (Cho et al.,2015). Apart from imposing rules and regulations to curb the issues, review also will look into approach taken in technical ways to protect the system to minimize the potential attacks in the smart home system.