The Role of Cybersecurity in Smart Cities
Azeem Khan, N. Z. Jhanjhi, Mamoona Humayun
Abstract
As cities are considered to be developed places where ample opportunities are rampant for individuals to grow economically and professionally, mass migration is taking place from rural areas toward urbanization in search of better living. This has caused population growth in cities exponentially since the emergence of the industrial revolution, wherein people in a quest for the betterment of lives have been migrating toward cities. Still, this process is in a continuum. As per one of the statistical data published by the United Nations, the world population living in cities will increase by 66% by the year 2050, which was estimated to be 50% in the year 2007. This huge influx of masses from rural areas toward urbanization has posed several challenges to local governments involving public and private sectors for the city administrations. The challenges posed are maintaining, managing, and providing enhanced, efficient, and effective administration of cities with sound basic infrastructures comprising health, mobility, housing, water, sewage, environment, and energy. To facilitate betterment for these infrastructures above with improvised efficient and effective city administration, governments globally have taken initiatives by implementing state-of-the-art information and communication technologies into city infrastructures, which are termed as smart cities. Smart cities are comprised of infrastructures that are instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent in providing timely information for the individuals dwelling in cities and availing them with efficient decision-making. As the whole ecosystem of a smart city is governed by devices embedded with sensors and connected via the internet, they are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Hence, cybersecurity is at the rescue to address these issues concerned with security and privacy in smart cities. This chapter is an effort to highlight these security and privacy issues concerned with smart cities. We have proposed a framework related to cybersecurity in smart cities and addressed problems and challenges related to smart, secure, and efficient communication within this whole smart city ecosystem.