Agent-based Transactions for Home Energy Services

Current home energy management systems (HEMS), which use the existing home networks and Internet as the communication infrastructure, are both inexpensive and offer definite consumer advantages. However, most of them don’t support e-services such as reporting and dealing with monthly expenses for services like power, gas, and water. A key deterrent for the handling of the e-services in this environment is that the data may be subject to a variety of active and passive attacks if the system is not designed properly. This paper describes a lightweight security architecture for e-services related to home energy services. The system is intended to protect against both inside and outside attacks by using the existing HEMS and combining the tamper-resistant devices with Internet security techniques.