A TOR-based anonymous communication approach to secure smart home appliances

Digital information has become a social infrastructure and with the expansion of the Internet, network infrastructure has become an indispensable part of social life and industrial activity for mankind. The idea of using existing electronics in smart home appliances and connecting them to the Internet is a new dimension along which technologies continue to grow, and in recent years mankind has witnessed an upsurge of usage of devices such as smart phone, smart television, home health-care device, smart LED light bulbs system, etc. Their build-in internet-controlled function has made them quite attractive to many segments of consumers and smart phone has become a common gadget for social networking. There are, however, serious challenges which need to be addressed as these tiny devices are designed for specific functions and lack processing capacity required for most security software. This research explores how these internet-enabled smart devices can be turned into very dangerous spots for distributed attacks purposes by cybercriminals for various ill intensions in a pinpointed manner. It then introduces a new approach to deal with such problems by taking advantage of the anonymous communication of the Onion Router (hereafter: TOR). It compares pros and cons of using anonymous communication scheme and justifies it be an efficient countermeasure to most attack scenarios.