GHOST

Introduction

GHOST aims to deploy a highly usable and effective security framework for smart home residents. The project will apply behavioural design principles for the elaboration of a novel reference architecture for user-centric cyber security in smart home environments. This architecture will stimulate security-friendly user behaviour enforced by an unobtrusive and user-comprehensible solution. At the core of the GHOST solution lies a smart home network gateway, supporting a wide range of wired and wireless protocols, that will host the security toolset and the Blockchain defence infrastructure.

Who is the project designed for?

GHOST ambition is to provide to EU citizens professional level cybersecurity for smart-living. This project does not limit the vertical markets of application, but the solution will be tested in several specific markets for IoT solution in advanced telecare, continuous telehealth, energy, home automation and home security. Initially identified main stakeholders in the GHOST value-chain are regular citizens living in smart homes, as well as IoT and smart homes manufacturers.

How will the project benefit the end-user?

GHOST aims to deploy a highly usable and effective security framework for smart home residents. The project will apply behavioural design principles for the elaboration of a novel reference architecture for user-centric cyber security in smart home environments. This architecture will stimulate security-friendly user behaviour enforced by an unobtrusive and user-comprehensible solution. At the core of the GHOST solution lies a smart home network gateway, supporting a wide range of wired and wireless technologies. A set of software-enabled security services will be embedded to the gateway with the ambition to offer corporate level security down to regular citizens for personal use in their homes. GHOST will equip consumers with their own cyber security inspection, discovery and decision toolset, and shift security focus paradigm from incoming data flows to the awareness and control of data going out.

On top of this toolset, a Blockchain layer will be deployed for further enhancing the security of smart homes by leveraging appropriate smart contracts. GHOST embraces the notion of usable security to address users’ tendency to choose convenience over security, as well as security fatigue and desensitisation, which are pointed out as the root cause for the great majority of security and privacy breaches.

Please briefly describe the results your project achieved so far

GHOST project is currently in the first year, where a first version of the core components has been designed and implemented. The process of the overall integration and adaptation in the GHOST gateways is currently ongoing and the first prototype is expected to be delivered for the first trial runs.

What are the next steps for your project?

The next step for the GHOST solution is to provide a first prototype that will be deployed on the real-life trials smart-homes. This will provide the consortium with valuable feedback for iteratively improving the overall implementation and fine-tune the security algorithms that are adopted.