SETUCOM: Secure and Trustworthy Context Management for Context-Aware Security and Privacy in the Internet of Things

IoT technologies facilitate the development and the improvement of pervasive computing by enabling effective context-awareness features. These features enable the IoT applications to detect the user’s situation and adapt their behavior. They also enable context-aware security and privacy, which consist in adapting security and privacy mechanisms’ deployment to the user’s situation. Research studies on context-aware security and privacy focus on security and privacy mechanisms’ implementation but do not consider the secure and trustworthy context management. In this paper, we introduce a new secure and trustworthy context management system for context-aware security and privacy in the smart city: “SETUCOM.” SETUCOM is the implementation of the DTM (Device Trust Management) module of the CASPaaS (Context-Aware Security and Privacy as a Service) architecture. It secures context information exchange by using a lightweight hybrid encryption system adapted to IoT devices and manages trust through artificial intelligence techniques such as Bayesian networks and fuzzy logic. A detailed description of the proposed system is provided, and its main performances are evaluated. The results prove SETUCOM feasibility in context-aware security and privacy for the smart city.