Poster Abstract: Passive Activity Classification of Smart Homes through Wireless Packet Sniffing
Kwon Nung Choi, Thilini Dahanayaka, David Kennedy, Kanchana Thilakarathna, Suranga Seneviratne, Salil S. Kanhere, Prasant Mohapatra · 2020
Network communications, despite being encrypted, leak crucial information via side channels. WiFi networks are more prone to such side-channel attacks since any attacker within the network’s range can passively eavesdrop the channel. With the increasing number of smart home devices and sensors connecting to private WiFi networks, it is essential to understand the inadvertent information leakage through WiFi side-channels. Our work demonstrates how fine-granular information on the activities happening inside a house can be inferred by passively monitoring WiFi network traffic. In particular, we were able to correctly classify various user interactions with simple IoT devices such as smart bulbs or power sockets as well as advanced voice-based intelligent assistants.