Smart Built Environments is composed of physical and digital infrastructure and aims to improve data-driven decision-making and provide faster and cheaper operation and maintenance (e.g., better whole-life value). As a society, we increasingly depend on ‘smart’ infrastructure that is internet-connected. Broadly ‘smart’ technologies aim to improve services (e.g., efficiency, effectiveness, convenience). Smart infrastructures comprise thousands of connected devices and systems (i.e., IoT systems). Two common built environments are smart homes and smart office buildings. There are a heterogeneous set of systems deployed in these buildings, which reflect the complex and heterogeneous nature of the IoT marketplace. These heterogeneities and ad-hoc nature of the deployments (e.g., IoT systems are not always built into the buildings. Instead, they are deployed at different times since commissioning a building) make these buildings more vulnerable to malicious activities (e.g., Cyber-Physical attacks). Over the years, Cyber-Physical attacks have been targeted on Industrial Control Systems (ICS), given they were the most common connected systems. For example, hackers recently attempted to poison the water supply by manipulating the valve to increase sodium hydroxide (lye). Both homes and buildings are getting more connected with IoT systems deployed each year. The IoT devices and systems sales are expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.6% from 2021 to 2028. As a result, we will be starting to depend on them. Therefore, smart homes and buildings will become an attractive sector for malicious actors to utilise for malicious activities to either target individual homes and buildings or conduct malicious activities at scale. For example, a smart home study carried out by NCC Group and the Global Cyber Alliance recorded more than 12,000 attack attempts in a week, including 2,435 specific attempts to maliciously log into the devices with a weak default username and password. As a research community, our understanding of Cyber-Physical systems around built environments is lacking compared to traditional cyber security domains such as Industrial control systems. Resilient means the ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions (e.g., Cyber-Physical attacks). There are four principal components for resilience: Resistance, Reliability, Redundancy, Response and recovery. These four Rs can help us increase resilience in the built environment while considering both the strengths and limitations of each approach.

Special Session content, indicating the topics that the Special Session will cover in detail.

Our key theme is Resilience within build environments. Resilience means the ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions (e.g., Cyber-Physical attacks or unexpected malfunctions). We invite original contributions including, but not limited to the following:

 

 

Please submit your paper for this Special Session using the link to eWorks:

eWorks Submissions

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Charith Perera: pererac@cardiff.ac.uk