VAR Panchayat

Securing Smart Cities and IoT Devices

by VARINDIA 2017-03-31

The cybersecurity element should be included right from the planning phase of a “Smart City” and not an after-thought

“Smart City” is not only an ambitious initiative by the Government but has become a vision for many organizations, especially those which by way of their expertise and offerings can get associated with the initiative. “Smart City” will impact the way people will live, work and grow and will be a true example of a successful “democracy”.

“Smart City” will be an amalgamation of multiple cutting-edge products, solutions and services which are right now catering to their respective customers. The “Smart City” initiative will bring together organizations specializing in these offerings to meet the objective of creating cities built on advanced infrastructure supported by state-of-theart technologies and smart devices. Smart Cities are going to be hotbeds for investments, businesses and skilled labour which are necessary for economic growth and development.

While the Government has planned to develop 100 Smart Cities in the country, it could lead to a massive and quick expansion of Internet of Things (IoT), as Smart City projects are frequently driven by mass deployment of IoT-enabled devices. According to Gartner, IoT can be extensively beneficial for Smart City projects and by 2020, 20 per cent of Indian Smart City initiatives will introduce IoT-enabled Smart City solutions to resolve or mitigate transportation-related urban issues.

We expect that there will be an inclusion of several IoT devices in a “Smart City”. It is needless to mention that these IoT devices will be completely leveraged only when they are connected through a strong network and exchange of information is possible in real time.

Threat Landscape

As amazing as it sounds, it also calls in for the need for securing these IoT devices, as one breach into one device will leave the entire network and connected devices compromised and information lost. Owing to lack of standardization of IoT devices, the sensors are prone to hacking. Hackers can hack the sensors and feed fake data, causing signal failures, system shutdowns, etc. A holistic examination of the security aspect of a technology is a must before deploying it.

Proactive Measures

The cybersecurity element should be included right from the planning phase of a “Smart City’ and not an after-thought. The city planners can refer to how cybersecurity issues are handled by industries and enterprises. To keep “Smart Cities” safe, a state of readiness is required, which includes designing and implementing a cyber threat intelligence strategy which will be extended to the entire ecosystem, including partners, suppliers, services and business networks. A “Smart City” should adopt a cyber-economic approach in terms of understanding the vital assets and their value, investing in securing them and using forensic data analytics and cyber threat intelligence to analyze and anticipate where the likely threats are coming from and when.

Securing “Smart Cities” can be challenging. Not because of unpreparedness if any, at this stage, but because of the complexities involved due to the expanse. There are multiple things which should be developed simultaneously such as development of robust and standardized security solutions for IoT devices, developing a mechanism which could track various threats targeted at each of the IoT device which is a part of the ecosystem, capability to monitor user’s behaviour, raising an alarm on time and countering the threat, transitioning of data in the event of a breach, recovering data which has been compromised because of the breach and educating the users on these aspects and their expected action during such a crisis. It is also important to establish a security governance framework and continuous monitoring capabilities.

Although consumer adoption of IoT is still in its early stages, there are very few turnkey orchestration tools to successfully manage IoT security. It offers a plethora of opportunities for cybersecurity solutions providers. IoT will unlock the possibilities of integration and will be a catalyst in the success of “Smart Cities”.