Security in wireless residential networks

The installation rate of residential networks is expected to accelerate in the next few years with wireless networking being by far the technology of choice due to attractive features such as ease of use. A wide variety of traditional computing devices and embedded Internet appliances will be networked in homes. However, due to the broadcast nature of these networks and the heterogeneity of devices on these networks, new security problems will arise since the different types of devices have different security requirements and capabilities. We provide an overview of wireless residential networks, security issues for these networks and security in current wireless technologies such as IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth. We then suggest a security architecture based on a classification of security services, containment and algorithm agility that will be suitable for wireless residential networks.