Data Security in Smart Cities: Challenges and Solutions

The role of big data, cloud computing and IoT to make cities smarter

“…Furthermore, the majorities of applications in a smart city are not personal and are unattended. Their physical security is not guaranteed, especially in the public networks, the control of the objects may be lost and cascade failures may appear, caused by the interconnectivity of a large number of devices, difficult to be protected simultaneously (Popescul and Radu, 2016). In terms of big data, confidential data and information are also stored in databases.…”

The Importance of Internet of Things Security for Smart Cities

“…But while current, "classical" Internet attacks may cause damages to the information confidentiality, integrity and accessibility, similar actions in IoT can lead even to the loss of human lives. As shown in [16], there have already been demonstrations of hackers' interferences in the on-board computers of cars/planes and attacks in surgery rooms or on patients with implanted insulin pumps or other medical devices. As the list of vulnerable systems includes electric heating systems, food distribution networks, hospitals, traffic lights systems, transport networks, which are strongly interconnected in a smart city, the attack scenarios which might be envisaged starting from here are truly scaring.…”

“…Their number increases on a daily basis, and so do the connections between them. According to [16], all these things can be very smart in some situations and quite stupid in others: for example, smart in the sense that they collect, transmit, process and respond to various data, but stupid when there is a need to protect them. In [17], software, hardware and network constraints that restrict the inclusion of adequate security mechanisms (e.g.…”

“…As presented in [16], attacks in these zones can provoke compromising entire systems, and an infection can be easily transmitted between systems. This, in extremis, can determine an infection of the city itself, destroying even the physical infrastructure and threatening lives.…”

Towards a smart learning environment for smart city governance

“…Smart cities and TEL overlap in many concerns such as: data, processes, regulations and most importantly the goal of providing optimised services based on the collected stakeholders' data [4,5]. The rest of this paper is organised as follows: section two reviews the related work in e-learning as well as smart cities, section three introduces the proposed abstract framework that combine e-learning and smart cities to enhance learning services, section four emphasises some of the consideration and challenges to be tackled and finally section five draws certain conclusions and future work.…”