Threat detection in smart homes: a sociotechnical multimodal conversational approach for improved cyber situational awareness.

McDermott, Christopher D.; Nicho, Mathew

Abstract

Smart homes are becoming increasingly more complex and difficult to defend. Expanding Internet of Things (IoT) devices has reshaped socio-technical interactions within smart homes, yet security remains a secondary concern. In addition, users have been shown to lack awareness of potential vulnerabilities, leaving smart homes susceptible to attacks. This paper explores how humans can interact with conversational agents (CAs) to improve their awareness and detection of threats in smart homes. Utilising Endsley's situational awareness model, this research examines how users perceive, comprehend, and project knowledge of their surroundings to identify security threats when interacting with CAs through a multimodal framework. A mixed-methods study combining quantitative pre-test/post-test analysis with qualitative evaluations revealed that CAs significantly enhanced threat detection accuracy, efficiency, and user confidence across all dimensions of situational awareness when using a multi-modal approach.

Citation

MCDERMOTT, C.D. and NICHO, M. 2025. Threat detection in smart homes: a sociotechnical multimodal conversational approach for improved cyber situational awareness. International journal of information security [online], 24, article number 173. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-025-01051-x

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 20, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Jul 11, 2025
• Publication Date: Jul 11, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jul 25, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 25, 2025
• Journal: International journal of information security
• Print ISSN: 1615-5262
• Electronic ISSN: 1615-5270
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 24
• Article Number: 173
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-025-01051-x
• Keywords: Intrusion detection; Sociotechnical; Cyber situational awareness; Iot; Smart homes; Chatbot; Conversational agents; Multi-modal
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2842640
• Related Public URLs: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2935209 (Supplementary material associated with journal article)