Challenges in Securing Pervasive Computing Applications

Pervasive computing technology has the potential to benefit applications in the military, financial, and health care domain. Although pervasive computing technology looks promising, one critical challenge needs to be addressed before it can be widely deployed – security. The problem is serious because pervasive computing applications involve interactions between a large number of entities that can span different organizational boundaries. Unlike traditional applications, these applications do not usually have well-defined security perimeters and are dynamic in nature. Moreover, these applications use knowledge of surrounding physical spaces. This requires security policies to use contextual information that, in turn, must be adequately protected from security breaches. Uncontrolled disclosure of information or unconstrained interactions among entities can lead to very serious consequences. Traditional access control policies and mechanisms rarely address these issues and are thus inadequate for securing pervasive computing applications.