Securing home networks

  • FIIPS@Home is a research project on improving the security of home networks through a collaborative early-warning, information, intrusion prevention system.

Motivation

Home networks have become an attractive target for attacks. A contributing factor is the trend towards smart home and the use of IoT devices in such networks. If such devices are infiltrated, they could, for example, be used to eavesdrop on users or made to execute actions not desired by users. They could even be the origin of subsequent attacks on other networks, e. g. if they are made part of a botnet. IoT devices are often not protected well: They may have been developed in a cost-effective manner and are typically designed to be easy to integrate into the network by plug-and-play, without the appropriate attention being given to security. The increasing popularity of work-from-home policies means that insecure devices in home networks pose an increasingly severe threat even for large organisations.

Project goals

The aim of our project is to improve users’ self-determination and confidence in their use of digital technologies, applications and systems in their home network. To this end, we aim to develop an easily accessible and free mobile app, which provides users with an overview of the devices in their home network and performs simple vulnerability scans. An active sensor component for use on inexpensive USB compute sticks will be able to determine device fingerprints and continuously detect attacks on the protected home network. Finally, an active middlebox will be developed, which can break connections and isolate parts of the network in the event of an attack.

Funding

FIIPS@Home is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the Research Network Anonymisation. The project has a volume of 2.28 million euros. The BMBF provides 96% of the funding. The project started on December 15th, 2022 and will run for three years.

Project Participants

Latest News

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Paper accepted at WISE

on May 15, 2024

Our paper “An In-Depth Analysis of Security and Privacy Concerns in Smart Home IoT Devices Through Expert User Interviews” by Sascha Löbner, Frédéric Tronnier, László Miller and Jens Lindemann has been accepted for publication at the 2024 World Conference on Information Security Education (WISE 2024), which will take place in Edinburgh from June 12th to 14th. In this paper, we survey smart home usage behavior and user knowledge to identify the need for solutions that educate users on potential threats, and aid them in securing their smart home.

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FIIPS@Home at AnoSiDat

on April 9, 2024

On Tuesday, April 16th and Wednesday, April 17th, the congress of the research network on anonymisation for a secure use of data (AnoSiDat), which our project is a part of, will take place in Lübeck. FIIPS@Home will participate in this congress. On Wednesday, we will present the project in a talk. Furthermore, our poster can be found in the poster sessions on both days, during which we will also be available for questions and discussions about the project.

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Kick-off Meeting

on May 22, 2023

Today, the first official meeting of all project partners took place at the Department of Informatics at Universität Hamburg to kick off the project. (Photo: UHH/Schell)

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