TSINGHUA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ISSNll1007-0214 12/13 pp906–917

DOI: 1 0 . 2 6 5 9 9 / T S T . 2 0 2 1 . 9 0 1 0 0 0 1
Volume 26, Number 6, December 2021

Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey

Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad, Fadi Farha, Adnan O.M Abuassba, Shunkun Yang, and Fang Zhou

Abstract: With the rapid development of cyberspace and smart home technology, human life is changing to a
new virtual dimension with several promises for improving its quality. Moreover, the heterogeneous, dynamic, and
internet-connected nature of smart homes brings many privacy and security difficulties. Unauthorized access to
the smart home system is one of the most harmful actions and can cause several trust problems and relationship
conflicts between family members and invoke home privacy issues. Access control is one of the best solutions
for handling this threat, and it has been used to protect smart homes and other Internet of Things domains for
many years. This survey reviews existing access control schemes for smart homes, which concern the essential
authorization requirements and challenges that need to be considered while designing an authorization framework
for smart homes. Furthermore, we note the most critical challenges that other access control solutions neglect for
smart homes.

Key words: access control; smart home; authorization frameworks

1 Introduction from the benefits of smart homes, several security and

privacy issues need to be considered while building
Ever since Kevin Ashton conceived the Internet of
and designing a smart home. While introducing new
Things (IoT)[1] , and with the speedy development of
technologies aiming to make our homes smarter and
networking technologies and the IoT, human lives have
more automated, cyberspace is also growing fast[2–5] ,
been constantly changing from a physical dimension to
surrounding our lives with billions of smart devices that
a virtual dimension in which people can talk, chat, work,
can invoke privacy and security issues[6–10] .
and interact with the connected objects.
Smart home technology, which is one of the most
The smart home as an IoT application was introduced
important and fastest-growing fields of the IoT, is
to facilitate human life and change the way we live,
being massively deployed by many manufacturers and
play, and do business. It is meant to make life more
companies. The smart home includes home automation,
flexible, comfortable, and exciting. However, apart
home monitoring, and home security for the local users.
Smart homes face many security and privacy threats.
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad, Fadi Farha, and Fang Zhou
For instance, hacking the security cameras of the smart
are with the School of Computer and Communication
Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, home can violate the user’s privacy and access sensitive
Beijing 100083, China. E-mail: [email protected]; data, such as health data, pictures, and movies. These
fadi [email protected]; [email protected]. violations and unauthorized access to the smart home
 Shunkun Yang is with the School of Reliability and Systems can lead to many critical and dangerous issues[11] .
Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China. Email: Smart home devices can be accessible by multiple
[email protected].
users through a user-friendly interface, such as a
 Adnan O.M Abuassba is with the School of Computer Studies,
Arab Open University, Ramallah 4375, Palestine. E-mail:
web browser or mobile application[12] . Third-party
[email protected]. vendor applications basically control smart home devices
 To whom correspondence should be addressed. through mobile-based and web browser-based interfaces
Manuscript received: 2021-01-02; accepted: 2021-01-20 and interact with a back-end cloud system. This system
C The author(s) 2021. The articles published in this open access journal are distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad et al.: Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey 907

can expose the services via web APIs that accept queries have been proposed for the smart home with different
to control the devices and data from multiple vendors. assumptions and technologies. These variations and
Companies and manufacturers need to enforce access assumptions make the evaluation and effectiveness of the
control to solve smart home authorization problems authorization framework complicated. Although many
and ensure that unauthorized users do not access surveys discussed privacy and security challenges in the
sensitive resources. There are many commercial IoT[18–21] , only a few research works addressed access
authorization frameworks, some of which enforce coarse- control[22–26] .
grained access controls, such as Nest Thermostat In this survey, we conduct a review and analysis of
(store.google.com/us/category/connected home?), which the most recently proposed access control solutions for
grants full access to the smart device or no access at smart homes. As shown in Table 1, existing surveys have
all, and Apple Home Kit (www.apple.com/ios/home/), the following limitations:
which provides a local and remote full control (1) They do not cover all aspects of access control.
or view. Other authorization frameworks provide Most of these surveys only focus on the specification
more robust access control policies that support of policies, while the other two aspects, including
environmental conditions, such as Samsung Smart management and evaluations of the policies, are partly
Things (www.samsung.com/us/smartthings/), which or completely neglected.
tracks the user’s smartphone GPS coordinates and (2) The existing surveys do not summarize the
determines whether the user is at home. However, requirements of access control for smart homes, and
because this framework is a real-time user tracking, it no evaluation and analysis of existing authorizations
violates user privacy. Such shortcomings and challenges frameworks are available.
in implementing access control policies in smart This survey presents an overview and analysis of
homes can easily lead the devices and apps to access existing access control schemes in smart homes. We
unauthorized users, which may cause privacy and data mainly note the unsolved challenges in existing access
loss problems[13–15] . An example of these shortcomings control frameworks for smart homes and turn research
is having full access or permission issues in baby into more flexible and suitable authorization solutions.
monitors that are hacked and remotely controlled. The main contributions of our survey are as follows:
Therefore, a fine-grained access control system should be (1) An overview of the current authorization solutions
enforced to prevent unauthorized access to smart devices for the smart home and their evaluation based on
and data and support multiple user management[16] . specified requirements is presented.
Fine-grained access control systems apply policies (2) Guidelines and open challenges that should be
according to several aspects, such as smart device considered while designing smart home authorization
capabilities, the relationship between users, and frameworks are provided.
context information, including location and time-based The remainder of this paper is organized as follows:
conditions[17] . Because of IoT integration with web Section 2 explores the smart home architecture.
services and APIs, suitable access control is needed, Section 3 reviews access control and its different
especially to open smart home platforms. The access models. Section 4 concerns access control in smart
control model needs to be flexible and not too strict. The homes. In Section 5, we analyze the existing access
strictness of the authorization framework will affect the control solutions for the smart home, and Section 6
dynamicity of the smart home system. consummates our work and appoints a direction for
In recent years, several authorization frameworks future research.

Table 1 Comparison with existing surveys of access control.

Reference Multi-user management Policy specification Policy management Policy evaluation and enforcement Smart home
[23] –– *– –– *– ––
[22] –– ** *– *– *–
[24] –– *– *– –– ––
[26] –– ** ** ** *–
[25] –– ** *– –– ––
Our survey ** ** ** ** **
Note: **: Fully considered *–: Partially considered W Not considered.
 908 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2021, 26(6): 906–917

2 Smart Home made of resource-constrained smart devices, the access

control and authorizations solutions deployed in the
The smart home is an important IoT application in daily
architecture’s middleware layer have been reviewed in
life. Smart devices, such as doorbells, thermostats, door
this survey. For greater clarity, we separate middleware
locks, smart ovens, smart lights, and smart refrigerators,
from the network layer. Thus, a four-layer architecture
are installed and configured in smart homes. They can
model is adopted.
be remotely controlled by home users via user-friendly
As shown in Fig. 1, the application layer consists
interfaces, such as web browsers or mobile applications.
of application nodes that provide end-user services.
The interactions inside the smart home can be machine-
The middleware layer consists of intermediate nodes
to-machine or human-to-machine. As an example of
to maintain connectivity and interoperability within
the machine-to-machine interactions, a smart fridge can
the smart home system. The network layer provides
automatically interact with a smartphone and send a
communication and data transfer between nodes. Finally,
notification to it when something is running low in the
the physical layer consists of smart devices.
fridge, such as milk and fruit. An example of the human-
to-machine interactions is a house owner controlling 2.2.2 Architectural styles
smart devices, such as light bulbs, or allowing other In recent years, several architectural styles have been
family members to control the smart devices using their proposed. The architectural style varies based on several
smartphone application or a simple web browser. factors, such as the domain and communication between
The smart home application presents several application nodes, intermediate nodes, and physical
challenges due to its multi-user and multiple device nodes. As shown in Fig. 2, three main types of
nature. Sharing smart devices between smart home users
causes many conflicts in terms of user demands leading
to many complicated scenarios[27] . Before explaining
access control and how it works with the smart home, we
briefly explain the smart home’s elements and structure.
2.1 Smart home elements
The smart home elements, also named nodes, are divided
into the following three categories[26] :
(1) Physical nodes: They include any entity or thing
that can interact with the environment and provide
resources, such as sensors, actuators, smart fridges,
microwave ovens, light bulbs, cameras, and doorbells.
(2) Application nodes: They include the resources
provided by physical nodes that feed the application
nodes to deliver services to users. Fig. 1 Architectural model and smart home elements.
(3) Intermediate nodes: They are located between
physical nodes and application nodes. They connect
two or more different networks and route traffic between
them, such as a bridge and gateway.
2.2 Smart home architecture
The architecture of the smart home shows the actual
functionality and connectivity of the smart home system,
including architectural models and architectural styles.
2.2.1 Architectural models
Several architectural models have been proposed for the
IoT[28–34] . Typically, the architecture models are divided
into layers, and each layer has its own functionality.
Because the smart home and other IoT systems are Fig. 2 Architecture styles of the smart home.
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad et al.: Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey 909

architectural style are used[23, 35] : 3.1.3 Mandatory Access Control (MAC)
(1) Centralized architecture: In this architecture, all This model is static. Each object has an assigned label to
the physical nodes are connected through an intermediate indicate specific privileges of the object. Moreover, each
node. Moreover, the requests from the application node subject has a label to indicate which object a requester
must pass through an intermediate node. This type of can access[40] . In MAC, all users only have access to
architecture is usually used with resource-constrained resources based on their task-related privileges, and
smart devices. because of its static nature, this model is not flexible
(2) Connected architecture: Physical nodes can and cannot be used for dynamic domains, such as smart
process and forward data to intermediate nodes, and homes.
application nodes can directly retrieve data from physical
3.1.4 Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
nodes.
(3) Distributed architecture: Intermediate nodes are It is commonly deployed for small and large
unnecessary, and every node can process data and organizations[41] . As the name of this access control
communicate with other nodes[26] . model suggests, the users can have access to the
resources based on their roles. RBAC mainly depends
3 Access Control on the following elements: subject (users), object
(resources), roles (collection of permissions), and
Access control is an effective technique for addressing
operations (actions on the resources). In RBAC, access
privacy, security, and access violation issues in smart
rights are granted to roles, and roles give users
homes. Its main goal is to ensure that the house resources
permissions based on their role rather than their identity.
can only be accessed by authorized users, data, and
Every user can have multiple roles, and each role could
services. It protects the system by restricting legitimate
be granted to multiple users. This model is also not
users’ access according to their privileges and preventing
recommended in the smart home system because of its
unauthorized users[36, 37] .
limitations in context-awareness and dynamicity, so it
3.1 Access control models cannot satisfy the smart home system requirements.
Several access control models are available and can 3.1.5 Capability-Based Access Control (CapBAC)
be implemented in smart homes. They range from a Unlike other models, CapBAC is a distributed approach-
very basic level, such as an access control list, to a based model, where things can make the decision
slightly more advanced level, such as attribute-based without any reliance on the central device. CapBAC
access control. can be implemented on highly capable devices. Hence,
3.1.1 Access Control List (ACL) this model is not truly suitable for the smart home system
Traditionally, the access control matrix was one of the because it typically consists of low-power and resource-
early techniques used for access control. Its columns constrained devices.
and rows are composed of objects and subjects, and each 3.1.6 Usage Control (UCON)
record has a set of subject-related access rights[38] . Later, Other models, such as Attribute-Based Access Control
ACL was developed. It is a set of specific resources (ABAC) and RBAC, can only change the attributes
accessible only for specified users concerning their after or before the access request. However, the
privileges[36] . attributes cannot be changed during the execution of
3.1.2 Discretionary Access Control (DAC) the access rights. UCON provides more flexibility
DAC is specially developed for systems and databases than other models while handling authorization by
with multi-user platforms. It grants access depending on introducing decision factors (obligations and conditions)
user identities. In DAC, the entire system is under the and mutable attributes. Mutable attributes are the actors,
control of the owner, who grants access to the other resources, or contextual information whose values can
users, which is why it is called discretionary access be changed based on an object’s usage. With continuous
control. It allows users to substitute their privileges policy evaluations, UCON can interfere with access to
to other users[39] . The main disadvantage of DAC is that prevent misuse of the resources when the access right
nonlegitimate users can gain access to resources. becomes invalid, even during ongoing access[42] .
 910 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2021, 26(6): 906–917

3.1.7 ABAC smart home devices, smart home components should

ABAC is fine-grained, flexible, and dynamic access be easily communicated with each other.
control. In this model, access rights depend on Reliability: As the smart home is becoming a part
the subject, object, environmental conditions, and of daily life and multiple users may want to access its
their related policies[43] . This model gives the best resources, the smart home system should be easy to use
combination of various attributes for building a flexible and designed to provide users with sufficient reliability
and dynamic authorization framework. Its flexibility and availability.
and context-aware nature make it a more suitable Lightweight: Because the smart home devices
authorization model for smart homes and other IoT are resource-constrained with low-power and memory
domains than other traditional role-based models. specifications, the access control system should be
lightweight. The smart home system is also sensitive to
4 Access Control in Smart Home latency, and it should be automated. Furthermore, the
smart home is more suitable with a centralized structure,
Access control is an essential technique for smart home
multiple user management, and a centralized access
systems, and it should adapt to the different requirements
control system.
of smart homes. It is difficult and not optimal to only To summarize, as shown in Fig. 3, the smart home
take the other systems’ access control schemes and characteristics include low (scalability, reliability, and
implement them in the smart home system. There latency), medium (dynamicity and automation), and
should be a suitable access control that matches the high (heterogeneity, lightweight property, and user
requirements of the smart home. involvement)[26] .
Although there are many privacy and security issues In Table 2, we briefly discuss requirements that
in smart homes, in this survey, we only focus on the should be met while designing and developing
authorization and how to protect and ensure that smart an access control system for the smart home
home devices, applications, and data are safe from environment. It is strictly committed to Requirement1,
unauthorized access. To address this issue, access control Requirement2, Requirement3, and Requirement6, and
of the smart home system needs to be enforced. This partially committed to access control Requirement4 and
tactic guarantees that only the authorized users can have Requirement5.
access to smart home resources.
As explained in Section 2, a smart home is different 5 Smart Home: Use Cases and Challenges
from other domains. It has its specific characteristics and To overcome the unauthorized access and unwanted
requirements that need to be observed while designing
and implementing the related access control scheme.
Figure 3 shows the key functional characteristics of the
smart home. The requirements of these characteristics
differ as follows:
Scalability: The smart home is a dynamic
environment in which new devices and resources can
be added anytime. Therefore, the smart home system
should provide sufficient scalability for users.
Heterogeneity: Because several vendors produce Fig. 3 Smart home characteristics.

Table 2 Access control requirements for a smart home.

Category Requirement ID Requirement details
Requirement1 There should be a fine-grained access control model for smart homes.
Policy specification
Requirement2 There should be an access control model that can provide dynamicity for smart homes.
Policy management Requirement3 The access control system should allow users to easily manage policies.
Requirement4 The authorization decision of the access control model should be automated.
Policy evaluations The access control model should not bring inconvenience to the performance of the
Requirement5
and enforcement smart home devices.
Requirement6 The access control system should always be operational.
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad et al.: Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey 911

application installations in smart home environments, the same devices in the digital world of smart homes[47] .
some smart home platforms provide solutions, such as Moreover, a police officer can sometimes request
the apple home kit, which supports two types of access: temporary access to the smart home outdoor security
remote view access and editing modes. In remote view cameras or the door locks. Furthermore, members of
access mode, a user can obtain access to the connected the smart home temporarily leaving the city or country
smart home devices but cannot edit anything. In contrast, sometimes need remote access to the smart home.
in editing mode, a user can edit remote devices, data, and
6 Authorization Frameworks for Smart
applications. Other smart devices, such as Kwikset Kevo
Lock and August smart lock, also support temporary Homes
access rights for guest users[44, 45] . These solutions are Several authorization frameworks have been developed
device and vendor specific. Therefore, they are not in the last few years to fill the gaps in smart
suitable and applicable in a complex environment with home resource authorization. This section reviews and
multiple devices and users. As a result, existing access analyzes recent existing solutions based on the smart
control frameworks fail to satisfy such complicated home requirements and discusses which authorization
multi-user and multiple device demands. For example, framework is suitable for smart homes.
parents do not want their children to have access to a 6.1 Existing authorization frameworks
smart TV; the house owner wants to give temporary
access to the guest room TV and light bulbs to the guest; Several authorization frameworks have been proposed
or the need for privacy among apartment roommates for smart homes and can be categorized into
means that everyone only has access to one’s own smart two main types: policy evaluation strategy and
architecture. Most of the policy evaluation strategy
devices.
authorization frameworks[12, 42, 48–57] are inspired by the
Suitable fine-grained access control can be designed
eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML)
and implemented to solve these problems[12] , and
standard[58] . Moreover, several policy evaluation
several works have been completed to understand
strategies-based and architecture-based authorization
the needs and preferences of users to determine the
frameworks[56, 59–61] are built on the top of OAuth[62]
needs and requirements of access control design in
to enable token generation.
smart homes[17, 27, 46] . Recently, research[17] has been
With the several architectural types of access control,
conducted among 425 users of smart homes to determine
several technologies and deployments are presented,
the effect of the relationship between users on access
such as Policy Decision Point (PDP), policy enforcement
control requirements in smart homes. Other research[46]
point, policy Administration Point (PAP), and policy
tried to understand the requirements and needs of information point, which can be deployed in the
access control in real-life smart homes. The authors[46] cloud or edge devices[49] , in addition to authorization
developed an access control prototype and measured solutions built based on blockchain[42, 52, 57] . Some
its usability by performing a study of eight smart works, such as Refs. [12, 54–56, 60, 61, 63], are
homeowners. prototype implementations, and many others, such as
The authors in Ref. [47] mentioned use cases of access Refs. [42, 52–55, 57, 59, 64], are conceptual level
control in smart homes. For instance, all smart home proposed solutions.
members can have full access to smart devices, but that Another recent authorization framework specific to
is not the case for guest users. Smart home systems have the smart home environment was proposed by Sikder et
to compromise guest user access to stay within limited al.[12] and solves several problems, such as supporting
premises[48] . Guest users need to control light bulbs, multi-user management and context-awareness, but for
the room temperature, the fridge, and other guest room the architecture of access control, it was based on RBAC,
devices. However, they should not have access to any while the smart home needs a dynamic and flexible
other sensitive data or smart devices. Another common access control model, such as ABAC or UCON.
scenario concerns the external trusted people, such as a In the above mentioned authorization frameworks,
housekeeper and cleaning staff. While they have access if the user does not meet specific requirements, the
to physical entry of the smart home and devices within policy server will reject its request. For instance, if
the home premises (e.g., lamps, window blinds, heating, a legitimate user temporarily left the country and wants
and the fridge), they obviously must also have access to to have access to smart home resources in an emergency,
 912 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2021, 26(6): 906–917

then smart home access control should be flexible by built based on authorization framework, and the use
providing more options to users, such as generating cases only show the authorization flow. Few existing
a verification code and sending it to the user’s email authorization frameworks have been conducted to
or phone number or asking secret questions to provide implement and evaluate a real smart home[12, 56, 70] ;
temporary access. Tables 3 and 4 briefly explain the hence, other research works only provide a prototype-
existing access control systems used for smart homes. based implementation[54, 55, 61, 66] .
To implement the access control-based authorization 6.2 Discussing smart home authorization
frameworks on the real smart home domain, most of the frameworks
existing authorization frameworks[42, 48, 52, 53, 57, 59, 64, 69]
only mention that the access control architecture is According to the literature, we conclude that the smart

Table 3 Access control requirements for smart home.

Policy specification Policy administration Policy evaluation and enforcement
Reference
Requirement1 Requirement2 Requirement3 Requirement4 Requirement5 Requirement6
[42, 52]   
[61]    
[49]    
[47]    
[54]   
[50]   
[53]    
[64]  
[55]    
[56] 
[65]      
[66]    
[12]      
[67]      
[68]  
[57]    
Note: : Fully Considered  : Partially Considered : Not Considered.
Table 4 Existing access control characteristics.
Reference Architecture style Maturity level Access control model Context aware Multi-user management
[42, 52] Distributed Design ACL  
p
[61] Connected Prototype ABAC 
p
[49] Connected Product ACL 
[54] Connected Prototype RBAC  
p
[67] – Prototype PBAC 
p
[53] Centralized Design UCON 
p
[55] Centralized Prototype ABAC 
[64] Connected Design ABAC  
[57] Distributed Design RBAC  
p
[66] Distributed Prototype – 
p
[60] Connected Prototype – 
[59] Connected Design –  
p
[51] Connected Design – 
p p
[12] Connected Prototype RBAC
p
[48] Connected Design ACL 
p
[68] – Design ABAC 
p
[50] – Design RBAC 
[65] – Design PBAC  
[56] Distributed Prototype Trust-based  
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad et al.: Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey 913

home has several requirements, especially in policy of smart homes. Works such as Refs. [48, 49] are coarse-
management, totally different from other IoT grained authorization frameworks that are not suitable
applications, and these requirements need to be for all access control cases in smart homes, such as
considered while designing and implementing access when the users change their location while accessing
control for smart homes. As shown in Table 2, the smart their smart home. Other works[12, 55, 68] propose a fine-
home highly relies on Requirement1, Requirement2, grained and context-aware access control system for
Requirement3, and Requirement6, and partially relies smart homes, but they do not consider the multi-users’
on Requirement4 and Requirement5. role, robots’ role, and usability of the access control-
Concerning the policy specifications, an authorization based authorization framework. Furthermore, none of
framework that can support fine-grained (Requirement1) the access control solutions for smart homes mentioned
and context-aware (Requirement2) access control can be the robots’ role, which nowadays can be considered users
satisfied with the design and implementation of ABAC in smart homes. For instance, service robots may need
and UCON. to access the smart lock or smart coffee machine to brew
With respect to policy management and policy coffee for home residents or perform other tasks.
evaluation, there are other access control requirements. 6.3 Open challenges and future works
The smart home authorization framework should always
be operational (Requirement6) and satisfied by the Because of the openness, heterogeneity, and nature of
authorization framework’s reliability and availability. smart homes, many challenges need to be considered
Furthermore, homeowners may want to manage and while designing and implementing an access control-
specify policies themselves in a smart home with several based authorization framework for smart homes. Some
devices. However, they might not have sufficient security of the unaddressed issues and future challenges that face
knowledge, so the smart home authorization frameworks the existing access control techniques in smart homes
should be user-friendly, easy to specify, and access are as follows:
control policy managers. As a result, consideration Multi-user management: Most of the existing
of usability (Requirement3) is very important while authorization frameworks assumed that the smart home
designing and implementing an access control system is a single-user domain, and the house owner is the only
for smart homes. user responsible for having control over smart devices.
Two more essential requirements to be considered As mentioned previously, there are many scenarios in
are the automation of access control (Requirement4) which multiple users need to have access to smart home
and the insensitivity of the resource-constrained device devices; therefore, while designing and implementing
communication and computing capabilities to the smart access control for smart homes, multi-user management
home access control system (Requirement5). needs to be considered.
Finally, the ideal access control framework for the Resource-constrained: Most smart home devices
smart home must be a centralized and policy-based have a low-power and resource-constrained nature,
framework in which the authorization decision should be so they cannot process high-computational encryption
automatic and dynamic based on the specified policies. It algorithms[71] . Such devices cannot decide which user
should also be location-aware and based on context. The should have privileged access. There should be a
policy authorization framework should be externalized, centralized authorization framework that helps these
so any changes and updates in the policies will not affect resource-constrained devices to make authorization
the smart home application design and coding parts. This decisions to address this challenge.
stipulation means that the PDP should be implemented Dynamicity: The multi-user nature of smart homes
in edge devices or the local cloud. brings a new challenge to the smart home system
Moreover, the PAP should allow the homeowner to in which users may want to access the resources
specify and modify the policies. Because of the small anytime and anywhere. Therefore, while designing
number of smart home devices, latency can be tolerated, and implementing access control for smart homes, the
and a run-time evaluation can be adapted. authorization decision should be made dynamically by
Some authorization frameworks, such as Refs. [12, 48, the system, i.e., there is no need for a house owner or
49, 55, 65, 68], are specially proposed for smart homes, admin user to authorize the requests coming from other
but these frameworks do not cover all the requirements users manually.
 914 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2021, 26(6): 906–917

Flexibility: The access control system should be vol. 22, no. 7, pp. 97–114, 2009.
tolerant with some changeable attributes and not too [2] H. Liu, H. S. Ning, Q. T. Mu, Y. M. Zheng, J. Zeng, L. T.
Yang, R. H. Huang, and J. H. Ma, A review of the smart
strict with the rules. For instance, a user may be out of
world, Future Generation Computer Systems, vol. 96, pp.
the country and want to access smart home resources. In 678–691, 2019.
this case, if the access control is location-aware, the user [3] A. K. Sikder, A. Acar, H. Aksu, A. S. Uluagac, K. Akkaya,
will fail to satisfy the condition of the location attribute and M. Conti, IoT-enabled smart lighting systems for
needed for the authorization decision. Consequently, the smart cities, in Proc. IEEE 8th Annu. Computing and
authorization framework will reject the user request. For Communication Workshop and Conf. (CCWC), Las Vegas,
NV, USA, 2018, pp. 639–645.
example, the authorization framework should skip the [4] Y. D. Huang, Y. T. Chai, Y. Liu, and J. P. Shen, Architecture
location attributes if the user answers a secret question of next-generation e-commerce platform, Tsinghua Science
or enters the verification code correctly. and Technology, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 18–29, 2019.
Machine-to-machine interaction: Robots in smart [5] H. S. Ning, H. Liu, J. H. Ma, L. T. Yang, Y. L. Wan, X. Z.
homes represent a new challenge to the existing access Ye, and R. H. Huang, From internet to smart world, IEEE
Access, vol. 3, pp. 1994–1999, 2015.
control solutions for the smart home. As we all know, [6] J. H. Liu, Y. Yu, J. W. Jia, S. J. Wang, P. R. Fan,
robots are widely used in smart homes. By 2024, almost H. Z. Wang, and H. G. Zhang, Lattice-based double-
79 million smart homes worldwide will use robots[72] . authentication-preventing ring signature for security and
Almost all the existing access control solutions used in privacy in vehicular Ad-Hoc networks, Tsinghua Science
smart homes can only accept requests from a human. and Technology, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 575–584, 2019.
[7] A. K. Sikder, L. Babun, H. Aksu, and A. S. Uluagac,
They cannot make authorization decisions for a machine,
Aegis: A context-aware security framework for smart
such as a robot, which can be considered a user in smart home systems, in Proc. 35th Annu. Computer Security
homes. For instance, the service robot helping people[73] Applications Conf., San Juan, PR, USA, 2019, pp. 28–41.
needs to clean the house. To do that, it should have [8] B. Zhao, P. Y. Zhao, and P. R. Fan, ePUF: A lightweight
access to the smart lock to enter the room and perform double identity verification in IoT, Tsinghua Science and
Technology, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 625–635, 2020.
its task. While designing access control for smart homes, [9] F. Farha, H. S. Ning, S. K. Yang, J. B. Xu, W. S. Zhang,
this challenge needs to be considered. Access control and K. K. R. Choo, Timestamp scheme to mitigate replay
solutions should identify the robot’s identity and have attacks in secure ZigBee networks, IEEE Transactions on
an additional feature that could decide which robot has Mobile Computing, doi: 10.1109/TMC.2020.3006905.
access to a specific device or resource. [10] M. C. Sánchez, J. M. C. de Gea, J. L. Fernández-Alemán, J.
Garceran, and A. Toval, Software vulnerabilities overview:
7 Conclusion A descriptive study, Tsinghua Science and Technology, vol.
25, no. 2, pp. 270–280, 2020.
This survey is conducted to provide an overview [11] R. Godha, S. Prateek, and N. Kataria, Home automation:
and analysis of existing access control-based Access control for IoT devices, International Journal of
Scientific and Research Publications, vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 1–4,
authorization frameworks for smart homes and
2014.
note the essential requirements and challenges in need [12] A. K. Sikder, L. Babun, Z. B. Celik, A. Acar, H. Aksu, P.
of consideration while designing and implementing McDaniel, E. Kirda, and A. S. Uluagac, KRATOS: Multi-
access control for smart homes. It also provides an idea user multi-device-aware access control system for the smart
concerning the ideal access control-based authorization home, arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.10186, 2020.
[13] L. Babun, A. K. Sikder, A. Acar, and A. S. Uluagac,
framework for smart homes, which will cover all the
IoTDots: A digital forensics framework for smart
existing requirements and challenges of authorization environments, arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.00745, 2018.
frameworks for smart homes. In the future, more [14] X. Tan, J. L. Zhang, Y. J. Zhang, Z. Qin, Y. Ding, and
focus will be on building more dynamic and flexible X. W. Wang, A PUF-based and cloud-assisted lightweight
authorization frameworks for smart homes that can authentication for multi-hop body area network, Tsinghua
handle multiple users and different types of devices and Science and Technology, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 36–47, 2021.
[15] E. Fernandes, J. Jung, and A. Prakash, Security analysis
tolerate emergency access rights cases. Moreover, the of emerging smart home applications, in Proc. 2016 IEEE
frameworks will be able to handle machine-to-machine Symp. Security and Privacy (SP), San Jose, CA, USA, 2016,
(robots to other smart devices) access rights without any pp. 636–654.
human interpretation. [16] M. Stanislav and T. Beardsley, Hacking IoT: A case study
on baby monitor exposures and vulnerabilities, https://
References www.rapid7.com/globalassets/external/docs/Hacking-IoT-A-
Case-Study-on-Baby-Monitor-Exposures-and-Vulnerabilities.
[1] K. Ashton, That “Internet of Things” thing, RFID Journal, pdf, 2015.
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad et al.: Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey 915

[17] W. J. He, M. Golla, R. Padhi, J. Ofek, M. Dürmuth, virtual object communication in cloud-enabled IoT, in Proc.
E. Fernandes, and B. Ur, Rethinking access control and IEEE Int. Conf. Information Reuse and Integration (IRI),
authentication for the home Internet of Things (IoT), in San Diego, CA, USA, 2017, pp. 16–25.
Proc. 27 th USENIX Conf. Security Symp., Berkeley, CA, [32] J. Gubbi, R. Buyya, S. Marusic, and M. Palaniswami,
USA, 2018, pp. 255–272. Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements,
[18] R. Mahmoud, T. Yousuf, F. Aloul, and I. Zualkernan, and future directions, Future Generation Computer Systems,
Internet of Things (IoT) security: Current status, challenges vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 1645–1660, 2013.
and prospective measures, in Proc. 10th Int. Conf. Internet [33] R. Khan, S. U. Khan, R. Zaheer, and S. Khan, Future
Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST), London, internet: The Internet of Things architecture, possible
UK, 2015, pp. 336–341. applications and key challenges, in Proc. 10th Int. Conf.
[19] A. R. Sadeghi, C. Wachsmann, and M. Waidner, Security Frontiers of Information Technology, Islamabad, India,
and privacy challenges in industrial Internet of Things, in 2012, pp. 257–260.
Proc. 52nd ACM/EDAC/IEEE Design Automation Conf. [34] M. Wu, T. J. Lu, F. Y. Ling, J. Sun, and H. Y. Du, Research
(DAC), San Francisco, CA, USA, 2015, pp. 1–6. on the architecture of Internet of Things, in Proc. 3rd
[20] E. Vasilomanolakis, J. Daubert, M. Luthra, V. Gazis, A. Int. Conf. Advanced Computer Theory and Engineering
Wiesmaier, and P. Kikiras, On the security and privacy of (ICACTE), Chengdu, China, 2010, pp. 484–487.
Internet of Things architectures and systems, in Proc. 2015 [35] I. Bouij-Pasquier, A. A. Ouahman, A. A. El Kalam, and
Int. Workshop on Secure Internet of Things (SIoT), Vienna, M. O. de Montfort, SmartOrBAC security and privacy in
Austria, 2015, pp. 49–57. the internet of things, in Proc. IEEE/ACS 12th Int. Conf.
[21] R. H. Weber, Internet of Things–New security and privacy Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA), Marrakech,
challenges, Computer Law & Security Review, vol. 26, no. Morocco, 2015, pp. 1–8.
1, pp. 23–30, 2010. [36] C. T. Hu, D. F. Ferraiolo, and D. R. Kuhn, Assessment
[22] A. Ouaddah, H. Mousannif, A. A. Elkalam, and A. A. of access control systems, https://www.nist.gov/
Ouahman, Access control in the Internet of Things: Big publications/assessment-access-control-systems, 2006.
challenges and new opportunities, Computer Networks, vol. [37] Y. Cao, Z. Q. Huang, S. L. Kan, D. J. Fan, and Y. Yang,
112, pp. 237–262, 2017. Specification and verification of a topology-aware access
[23] R. Roman, J. Y. Zhou, and J. Lopez, On the features and control model for cyber-physical space, Tsinghua Science
challenges of security and privacy in distributed Internet of and Technology, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 497–519, 2019.
Things, Computer Networks, vol. 57, no. 10, pp. 2266–2279, [38] P. N. Mahalle, B. Anggorojati, N. R. Prasad, and R. Prasad,
2013. Identity authentication and capability based access control
[24] S. Sicari, A. Rizzardi, L. A. Grieco, and A. Coen-Porisini, (IACAC) for the Internet of Things, Journal of Cyber
Security, privacy and trust in Internet of Things: The road Security and Mobility, vol. 1, pp. 309–348, 2013.
ahead, Computer Networks, vol. 76, pp. 146–164, 2015. [39] H. F. Atlam, A. Alenezi, R. J. Walters, and G. B. Wills, An
[25] Y. P. Zhang and X. Q. Wu, Access control in Internet of overview of risk estimation techniques in risk-based access
Things: A survey, arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.01065, 2016. control for the internet of things, in Proc. 2nd Int. Conf.
[26] S. Ravidas, A. Lekidis, F. Paci, and N. Zannone, Access Internet of Things, Big Data and Security, Porto, Portugal,
control in Internet-of-Things: A survey, Journal of Network 2017, pp. 254–260.
and Computer Applications, vol. 144, pp. 79–101, 2019. [40] S. Bugiel, S. Heuser, and A. R. Sadeghi, Flexible and fine-
[27] E. Zeng, S. Mare, and F. Roesner, End user security and grained mandatory access control on android for diverse
privacy concerns with smart homes, in Proc. 13th USENIX security and privacy policies, in Proc. 22nd USENIX Conf.
Conf. Usable Privacy and Security, Berkeley, CA, USA, Security, Berkeley, CA, USA, 2013, pp. 131–146.
2017, pp. 65–80. [41] K. Z. Bijon, R. Krishnan, and R. Sandhu, A framework for
[28] M. Aazam, I. Khan, A. A. Alsaffar, and E. N. Huh, Cloud of risk-aware role based access control, in Proc. IEEE Conf.
things: Integrating Internet of Things and cloud computing Communications and Network Security (CNS), National
and the issues involved, in Proc. 2014 11th Int. Bhurban Harbor, MD, USA, 2013, pp. 462–469.
Conf. Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST), Islamabad, [42] A. Dorri, M. Steger, S. S. Kanhere, and R. Jurdak,
Pakistan, 2014, pp. 414–419. BlockChain: A distributed solution to automotive security
[29] M. R. Abdmeziem, D. Tandjaoui, and I. Romdhani, and privacy, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 55, no.
Architecting the Internet of Things: State of the art, in 12, pp. 119–125, 2017.
Robots and Sensor Clouds, Studies in Systems, Decision [43] D. Servos and S. L. Osborn, Current research and open
and Control. Cham, Germany: Springer, 2016, pp. 55–75. problems in attribute-based access control, ACM Computing
[30] A. Alshehri and R. Sandhu, Access control models for Surveys, vol. 49, no. 4, p. 65, 2017.
cloud-enabled Internet of Things: A proposed architecture [44] A. Home, How august smart locks work, https://august.com/
and research agenda, in Proc. IEEE 2nd Int. Conf. pages/how-it-works, 2020.
Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC), Pittsburgh, [45] RemoteLock, Smart locks by RemoteLock, https://
PA, USA, 2016, pp. 530–538. www.remotelock.com/smart-locks, 2020.
[31] A. Alshehri and R. Sandhu, Access control models for [46] E. Zeng and F. Roesner, Understanding and improving
 916 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2021, 26(6): 906–917

security and privacy in multi-user smart homes: A design [60] J. L. Hernández-Ramos, A. J. Jara, L. Marı́n, and A. F.
exploration and in-home user study, in Proc. 28th USENIX Skarmeta, Distributed capability-based access control for
Security Symp., Santa Clara, CA, USA, 2019, pp. 159–176. the internet of things, Journal of Internet Services and
[47] S. Werner, F. Pallas, and D. Bermbach, Designing suitable Information Security (JISIS), vol. 3, nos. 3&4, pp. 1–16,
access control for web-connected smart home platforms, in 2013.
International Conference on Service-Oriented Computing. [61] D. Hussein, E. Bertin, and V. Frey, A community-driven
Cham, Germany: Springer, 2017, pp. 240–251. access control approach in distributed IoT environments,
[48] T. H. J. Kim, L. Bauer, J. Newsome, A. Perrig, and J. IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 146–
Walker, Access right assignment mechanisms for secure 153, 2017.
home networks, Journal of Communications and Networks, [62] D. Hardt, The OAuth 2.0 authorization framework,
vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 175–186, 2011. https://www.hjp.at/doc/rfc/rfc6749.html, 2012.
[49] Y. Tian, N. Zhang, Y. H. Lin, X. F. Wang, B. Ur, X. Z. [63] R. Z. Du, A. L. Tan, and J. F. Tian, An attribute-based
Guo, and P. Tague, SmartAuth: User-centered authorization encryption scheme based on unrecognizable trapdoors,
for the internet of things, in Proc. 26th USENIX Security Tsinghua Science and Technology, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 579–
Symp., Vancouver, Canada, 2017, pp. 361–378. 588, 2020.
[50] G. P. Zhang and J. Z. Tian, An extended role based access [64] S. Sciancalepore, G. Piro, P. Tedeschi, G. Boggia, and
control model for the internet of things, in Proc. Int. G. Bianchi, Multi-domain access rights composition in
Conf. Information, Networking and Automation (ICINA), federated IoT platforms, in Proc. 2018 Int. Conf. Embedded
Kunming, China, 2010, pp. 319–323. Wireless Systems and Networks, Singapore, 2018, pp. 290–
[51] N. Ghosh, S. Chandra, V. Sachidananda, and Y. Elovici, 295.
SoftAuthZ: A context-aware, behavior-based authorization [65] K. Fysarakis, C. Konstantourakis, K. Rantos, C. Manifavas,
framework for home IoT, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, and I. Papaefstathiou, WSACd–A usable access control
vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 10773–10785, 2019. framework for smart home devices, presented at IFIP
[52] A. Dorri, S. S. Kanhere, and R. Jurdak, Blockchain in International Conference on Information Security Theory
internet of things: Challenges and solutions, arXiv preprint and Practice, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Cham,
arXiv:1608.05187, 2016. Germany: Springer, 2015, pp. 120–133.
[53] G. P. Zhang and W. T. Gong, The research of access [66] R. Schuster, V. Shmatikov, and E. Tromer, Situational
control based on UCON in the internet of things, Journal access control in the internet of things, in Proc. 2018 ACM
of Software, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 724–731, 2011. SIGSAC Conf. Computer and Communications Security,
[54] J. D. Jia, X. F. Qiu, and C. Cheng, Access control method Toronto, Canada, 2018, pp. 1056–1073.
for web of things based on role and SNS, in Proc. IEEE [67] S. Bandara, T. Yashiro, N. Koshizuka, and K. Sakamura,
12th Int. Conf. Computer and Information Technology, Access control framework for API-enabled devices
Chengdu, China, 2012, pp. 316–321. in smart buildings, in Proc. 22nd Asia-Pacific Conf.
[55] J. E. Kim, G. Boulos, J. Yackovich, T. Barth, C. Beckel, and Communications (APCC), Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2016,
D. Mosse, Seamless integration of heterogeneous devices pp. 210–217.
and access control in smart homes, in Proc. 8th Int. Conf. [68] S. Dutta, S. S. L. Chukkapalli, M. Sulgekar, S. Krithivasan,
Intelligent Environments, Guanajuato, Mexico, 2012, pp. P. K. Das, and A. Joshi, Context sensitive access control in
206–213. smart home environments, in Proc. IEEE 6th Int. Conf. Big
[56] P. N. Mahalle, P. A. Thakre, N. R. Prasad, and R. Prasad, Data Security on Cloud (BigDataSecurity), IEEE Int. Conf.
A fuzzy approach to trust based access control in internet High Performance and Smart Computing (HPSC) and IEEE
of things, presented at Wireless VITAE 2013, Atlantic City, Int. Conf. Intelligent Data and Security (IDS), Baltimore,
NJ, USA, 2013, pp. 1–5. MD, USA, 2020, pp. 35–41.
[57] A. Ouaddah, A. A. Elkalam, and A. A. Ouahman, [69] D. Rivera, L. Cruz-Piris, G. Lopez-Civera, E. de la Hoz,
Towards a novel privacy-preserving access control model and I. Marsa-Maestre, Applying an unified access control
based on blockchain technology in IoT, in Europe for IoT-based intelligent agent systems, in Proc. IEEE 8th
and MENA Cooperation Advances in Information and Int. Conf. Service-Oriented Computing and Applications
Communication Technologies, Advances in Intelligent (SOCA), Rome, Italy, 2015, pp. 247–251.
Systems and Computing. Cham, Germany: Springer, 2017, [70] R. Neisse, G. Steri, and G. Baldini, Enforcement of security
pp. 523–533. policy rules for the internet of things, in Proc. IEEE 10th
[58] OASIS Standard, eXtensible access control markup Int. Conf. Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking
language (XACML) version 3.0, http://docs.oasis-open. and Communications (WiMob), Larnaca, Cyprus, 2014, pp.
org/xacml/3.0/xacml-3.0-core-spec-os-en.html, 2013. 165–172.
[59] S. Gusmeroli, S. Piccione, and D. Rotondi, A capability- [71] J. Bugeja, A. Jacobsson, and P. Davidsson, On privacy
based security approach to manage access control in the and security challenges in smart connected homes, in
internet of things, Mathematical and Computer Modelling, Proc. European Intelligence and Security Informatics Conf.
vol. 58, nos. 5&6, pp. 1189–1205, 2013. (EISIC), Uppsala, Sweden, 2016, pp. 172–175.
 Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad et al.: Access Control and Authorization in Smart Homes: A Survey 917

[72] J. Collins, The robot and the smart home, https:// H. P. Liu, Skill learning for human-robot interaction using
www.abiresearch.com/blogs/2019/08/28/robot-and-the- wearable device, Tsinghua Science and Technology, vol.
smart-home/, 2020. 24, no. 6, pp. 654–662, 2019.
[73] B. Fang, X. Wei, F. C. Sun, H. M. Huang, Y. L. Yu, and

Ziarmal Nazar Mohammad received 2013 and Alquds Open University, Palestine between 2008 and
the bachelor degree at the School of 2011. His current research interests include neural networks,
Computer Science, Sayed Jamalludin machine learning, extreme learning machine, ensemble learning,
Afghan University, Afghanistan. Currently and computational intelligence.
working toward the master degree at the
School of Computer and Communication
Shunkun Yang received the BS, MS,
Engineering, University of Science and
and PhD degrees from the School of
Technology Beijing, China. His current
Reliability and Systems Engineering at
research interest includes cybersecurity, and Internet of Things &
Beihang University in 2000, 2003, and
Intelligence.
2011, respectively. He is an associate
research professor at Beihang University
Fadi Farha received the BS degree at the since 2016. He was an associate research
Faculty of Informatics Engineering, Aleppo scientist at Columbia University between
University, Syria in 2009. He received the September 2014 and September 2015. His main research interests
MS degree from University of Science are reliability, testing and diagnosis for embedded software, CPS,
and Technology Beijing in 2017 and is IoT, intelligent manufacturing, etc.
currently pursuing the PhD degree at the
School of Computer and Communication
Engineering, University of Science and Fang Zhou received the BS, MS, and
Technology Beijing, China. His current research interests include PhD degrees in computer science from
physical unclonable function, ZigBee, computer architecture, and the University of Science and Technology
hardware security. Beijing, China in 1995, 2002, and
2012. From 2015 to 2016, she was a
visiting researcher at the Department
Adnan O.M Abuassba is an assistant
of Computer and Information Sciences,
professor at Arab Open University-
Temple University, USA. She is currently
Palestine. He obtained the PhD degree in
an associate professor at the School of Computer Science and
computer science and technology from
Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing. Her
the University of Science and Technology
research interests include machine learning, information retrieval,
Beijing. He obtained the master degree in
and computer vision.
computer science from Al-Quds University,
Palestine. For 14 years, he has taught all
ages and levels. He participated in international conferences as
the 2015 Smart World Congress, Beijing and IEEE Workshop,
2015. He taught at Arab American University, Palestine during