A Hierarchical, Agent-based Approach to Security in Smart Offices

As electronic devices become more and more pervasively integrated in our daily routine, security concerns start to become evident. In the last years, there has been an increasing interest on the topic of security in smart environments. One of the most challenging environments regarding security are smart offices due to the high number of potential users, devices and spaces, and the diversity of security roles. This paper presents a security solution for an agent-based architecture for the smart office. This security solution is potentially applicable to generic smart environments, but it suits particularly well to the smart office scenario, taking advantage of the particular characteristics of the environment to satisfy the security requirements. The result is a hierarchical, agent-based solution, flexible and scalable enough to be applicable to different smart office scenarios, from small businesses to large organizations.