The challenge: providing AmI environments security and dependability (S&D)
In the ambient Intelligence (AmI) context dependability and security are crucial issues. In the AmI environment the personal sphere of individuals will be an open and evolving environment. Privacy is an increasing concern with respect to the latest technical developments in strong identification (biometrics, unique identifiers, etc.), RFID... Economic security, protection of intangible assets and IT investments drive to a growing policy interest on the security of information. Social accountability of security solutions is not guaranteed so far. Because of this combination of heterogeneity, mobility, dynamism, sheer number of devices, along with the growing demands for security and dependability these ecosystems are increasingly difficult to make secure and dependable. SERENITY’s purpose is to solve these issues.
Innovative vision: how to capture the expertise
Providing S&D in AmI ecosystems requires the dynamic application of the expertise of security engineers. SERENITY captures this expertise and make it available, supported by automated tools, to the AmI ecosystems. SERENITY’s belief is that S&D Patterns and Integration Schemes provide the best means to capture this expertise.
The solution
SERENITY focuses on three key areas to provide security and dependability mechanisms: Organization & Business, Workflow & Services and Network & Devices levels. Its key objectives are: To make validated security solutions available to AmI ecosystems and promote their assurance and evolution. To support the definition of security requirements which arise in different business, private and legal activities in order to enable a requirements-driven selection of appropriate security mechanisms within integration schemes at run-time. To provide mechanisms for monitoring security at run-time and dynamically react to threats or breaches of security, and context changes. To integrate security solutions, requirements definition and solution selection, and monitoring and reaction mechanisms in a common framework.
The innovator
Launched in January 2006, SERENITY (System Engineering for Security and Dependability) is a R&D project funded by the European Union. This consortium of 15 organisations – software companies, research institutions and leading-edge industrials – aims at providing security and dependability in Ambient Intelligence systems (AmI). SERENITY Project site: http://www.serenity-project.org
To make validated security solutions available to AmI ecosystems and promote their assurance and evolution.
