Using Software Defined Radio to Attack 'Smart Home' Systems

The Internet of Things (or IoT) is an emerging trend of which Smart Homes is a subset. IoT involves the integration of digital and wireless technologies in physical objects and systems, especially those historically unconnected. Home Automation systems or 'Smart Homes' have been an emerging trend, with products only recently hitting the mass market and being affordable.

Out of a fear of reduced usability, or breaking backwards compatibility, security is often neglected, or added as an afterthought. With the emergence of consumer-ready, programmable radio systems and low-cost devices with sufficient computational power, the field of Software-defined-radio (SDR) is experiencing rapid growth. Researchers can evaluate and attack all kinds of wireless systems without having to invest in expensive hardware or circuitry-making equipment, making attacks on these systems significantly easier.

This paper describes several plausible attacks on 'Smart-Home' systems using SDR platforms. In particular, the implementation of ZigBee, a communications protocol, in recent products is exemplarily examined and a software framework based on existing tools for attacks and audit is proposed and implemented in a proof-of-concept code.