Securing Smart Homes with OpenFlow: Feasibility, Implementation, and Performance

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) trend is introducing additional devices to home networks. Home networks face the same threats as every other network. Recently, IoT devices have been compromised by attackers and used as staging points for further attacks. Home users may not have the technical capability or funding to run advanced security devices designed to protect enterprises. Solutions to this problem exist, but in some cases, they rely on third party cloud services or require custom protocols to be deployed within the home network. Reliance on third party services comes with privacy implications, as well as the increased risk for a third party to be responsible for securing a network they may not directly control. Custom network protocols can effectively reduce the attack surface of home networks, but these are not easily compatible with devices in operation today. In this paper, we examine the feasibility of protecting home networks using OpenFlow enabled Access Points (APs). We propose a solution which builds least-permissive policies for each device and subsequently enforces the policies without requiring customized protocols. This allows the system to protect any connected wireless device. The design allows for a flexible deployment model and is capable of running on low cost hardware as an all-in-one unit. We perform a complete implementation and evaluation of the solution. The system can effectively limit the ability for compromised IoT devices to attack internal and external networks at a low cost to initial connection times.