Human-Centered Engineering & Design

The SAM Smart project aims to improve the security and transparency of smart home infrastructures and to increase residents' security awareness. With a holistic approach, it aims to develop cost-effective security solutions and AI-supported fixes for error-prone products. Among other things, a privacy dashboard provides insights into data flows. Partners from industry and research as well as a living lab with 30 households support Fraunhofer FIT in this effort.

The SAM Smart project supports users of smart home systems with their security tasks. Due to the increasing number of networked smart home devices and the associated data protection and security risks, SAM Smart is an innovative approach based on a socio-technical concept. It aims to develop cost-effective security solutions and AI-supported corrective measures for fault-prone products.

The Security Assistance Manager SAM serves as a multimodal user interface that enables users to interact with SAM in a natural way and obtain detailed information about security threats. A privacy dashboard is designed to provide insights into usage data and data flows. In addition to Fraunhofer FIT, several companies and universities are involved in the project, contributing their expertise in the areas of smart home technologies, security and data protection.

The project relies on a living lab with around 30 households to study how they use their smart home devices and keep them secure and to design solutions for SAM. Here improvements will be introduced and tested under real-life conditions, while security tests of various smart home devices will be carried out under lab conditions. Our aim is to offer preventive and reactive security solutions without restricting the users’ autonomy.

SAM Smart responds to the current challenges of the IoT market by taking a holistic approach to security in the smart home. It takes into account the human weaknesses of users and aims to strengthen their security awareness and competence. We combine a number of research approaches, including empirical studies on security awareness, design science studies of security concepts in the smart home and computer science research to improve the trustworthiness of devices and data protection.

The project started in December 2022, will run for three years and is funded by the BMBF.