Imposing security awareness on wearables

Charles Walter, Matthew L. Hale, Rose F. Gamble

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bluetooth reliant devices are increasingly proliferating into various industry and consumer sectors as part of a burgeoning wearable market that adds convenience and awareness to everyday life. Relying primarily on a constantly changing hop pattern to reduce data sniffing during transmission, wearable devices routinely disconnect and reconnect with their base station (typically a cell phone), causing a connection repair each time. These connection repairs allow an adversary to determine what local wearable devices are communicating to what base stations. In addition, data transmitted to a base station as part of a wearable app may be forwarded onward to an awaiting web API even if the base station is in an insecure environment (e.g. a public Wi-Fi). In this paper, we introduce an approach to increase the security and privacy associated with using wearable devices by imposing transmission changes given situational awareness of the base station. These changes are asserted via policy rules based on the sensor information from the wearable devices collected and aggregated by the base system. The rules are housed in an application on the base station that adapts the base station to a state in which it prevents data from being transmitted by the wearable devices without disconnecting the devices. The policies can be updated manually or through an over the air update as determined by the user.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2nd International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems, SEsCPS 2016
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages29-35
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781450341714
DOIs
StatePublished - May 14 2016
Event2nd International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems, SEsCPS 2016 - Austin, United States
Duration: May 16 2016 → …

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2nd International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems, SEsCPS 2016

Other

Other2nd International Workshop on Software Engineering for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems, SEsCPS 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAustin
Period5/16/16 → …

Keywords

  • Privacy
  • Security
  • Situational awareness
  • Wearables

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Artificial Intelligence

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