DSCI Best Practices Meet 2016: Designing Cyber Safe Smart Cities is crucial

The ‘Designing Secure Smart Cities’ session at DSCI’s 8 th edition of Best Practices Meet, recently held in Bangalore, brought attention to the importance of cyber security in the context of Indian smart cities

In India the concept of designing cities ages back to the days of Mohenjo-Daro. From then to now, thanks to all the technological advancements and human innovations, Indian cities have clearly come a long way. India’s first smart city Dholera SIR might be a reality in the next couple of years.

The Smart Cities Mission has garnered a great deal of attention from different corners of the country, and right so. With investments worth over thousands of crores into projects like traffic management, water storage, sewage treatment and so on, the mission promises quality services and way of life that would be at par with global standards.

What is worth noticing is the fact that despite the large scale developments, as well as debates around the sustainability of smart cities, there hasn’t been enough focus on the security aspect of these cities.

What could be the possible implications of a cyber attack? How data science can play a role in securing smart cities? How to create a strategy for cyber safe smart cities? These were some questions that were raised and adequately answered in the session Designing Secure Smart Cities at the Data security council of India (DSCI)’s 8 th edition of Best Practices Meet in Bangalore.

Smart cities rely on advanced technologies, mainly in the form of information and communication systems. It is undeniable that these technologies promise to make lives better but at the same time also add to the vulnerabilities of a city and highly increase the risk of cyber attacks.

There have been numerous examples of how security threats have created havoc in various well-established cities across the world. New York City reportedly faces about 80 million cyber threats every month. The case where Iranian hackers attacked the control system of a dam just few miles away from the New York City is a glaring example of how messy these threats can get and how vulnerable cities can be to these kind of attacks. The complications can be far worse for Indian cities.

In this backdrop, the session Designing secure smart cities emphasized on how data science, technology architecture and governance framework are integral elements in the making of cyber safe smart cities.

One of the session speakers, Laxmi Narayan Rao, Country Leader, HP Future Cities, CTO-Technology Services, HP, shared his views on how cyber security is critical for cities even more than it is for enterprises. “If security threats can be harmful to enterprises it can be catastrophic for countries and states,” he said.

“It is important for a smart city to be safe first, healthy second, and then comes other things,” he added.

Mukund Kannan, Global Head-Smart cities and Enterprise mobility, Tech Mahindra, also emphasized on the significance of governance measures to ensure security of smart cities. “At the bottom layer we need to get our governance in place,” he said.

National Security

The session speakers also raised their opinions on why building security into smart cities isn’t just crucial from a citizen safety perspective but also for safeguarding national integrity.

Governance, Technology and Design Thinking

The speakers unanimously voiced the opinion that at the end of the day standalone technology solutions won’t be enough to design safe smart cities, instead it will be a combination of strong governance framework, advanced technological solutions and design thinking that will pave the way to building a sustainable and secure smart cities.