Resilient Built Environments
Project Overview
This EPSRC PETRAS secondment project, embedded within the Building Research Establishment (BRE), investigates how multiple independent sensing layers can enhance the resilience of smart homes and office environments against cyber-physical threats. As built environments become increasingly dependent on interconnected IoT devices for monitoring, automation, and security, they also become vulnerable to sophisticated tampering and attack scenarios that can compromise occupant safety and operational continuity. The research compares resilience requirements across domestic and commercial building domains, identifying common vulnerabilities and domain-specific challenges that arise when IoT networks are deployed in different built environment contexts. The project designs controlled experiments to evaluate how independent, complementary IoT sensor networks can detect and mitigate cyber-physical tampering by providing redundant observational capabilities that are difficult for attackers to compromise simultaneously.
Case studies evaluate anomaly detection techniques applied to building sensor data and assess multi-layer sensing architectures that combine diverse sensor modalities. These layered approaches strengthen the overall security posture of connected buildings by ensuring that no single point of compromise can disable the entire monitoring infrastructure, providing defence-in-depth for critical building systems.
Funded by EPSRC through the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity and conducted in partnership with GCHQ and BRE, the project informs the creation of future research programmes. These programmes address resilience challenges in connected buildings, contributing to understanding how layered sensing strategies can protect critical building infrastructure from emerging cyber-physical threats in an era of increasing IoT adoption.
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