Smart Cities Not Necessarily Secure Cities

Our smart cities current attack surface is huge and vulnerable to attackers who are evolving continuously

Early this year, the government of India announced the names of the first 20 smart cities, thereby taking a step closer towards developing 100 Smart Cities in India. This has been one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by the government which plans to invest $1.2bn towards the realisation of this dream.

As India prepares itself for rapid urbanisation, it also becomes important for us to understand that smart cities are a cradle for economic activities that are likely to attract a lot of security threats. Therefore the need for the government to equip itself to ward off these attacks is greater than ever. SECURITY CHALLENGES IN SMART CITIES As per a report from KPMG , 72% of Indian companies 58 www.dqindia.com have faced cyber- attacks in 2015. Cybercriminals are known for their attack techniques and malwares which are continuously evolving. Hacktivists groups are known for launching cyber- attacks campaigns on organizations, groups of people and the most important being attacks against governments’ which result into monetary gains or access to sensitive information resulting in sabotaging of national security. LACK OF CYBER SECURITY TESTING One of the biggest challenge is that new technologies are being deployed in our cities without any proper security testing. There is more stress on ease-of-use and quick deployment of systems as a result of which security gets compromised sometimes.