Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems

Chapter 8Context Awareness for Adaptive Access Control Management in IoT Environments

Paolo Bellavista and Rebecca Montanari

Computer Science and Engineering Department (DISI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

8.1 Introduction

Recent advancements of wireless technologies and pervasive computing are leading to a global network of always/intermittently connected objects, that is, the Internet of Things (IoT). In the IoT, physical and virtual objects are equipped with capabilities to sense/collect data from their surrounding environment and to transmit data on a massive scale, thus turning them into so-called smart objects. This ecosystem of smart objects has the potential to improve users' experience. However, it raises several security and privacy challenges, further exacerbated when smart objects include actuators capable of modifying the targeted cyber physical systems (CPSs). These challenges are nowadays one primary barrier for the deployment and acceptance of industrial and mass-market IoT on a broad scale and with full economic sustainability.

Up to now related security research efforts have been mainly directed toward the design and development of lightweight security mechanisms and optimizations at the physical/network/application levels, by mainly taking into account constrained resource availability of smart objects. However, the nature of IoT (heterogeneity, dynamicity, and extreme variability/unpredictability of operating conditions) raises other relevant security ...