Smart cities and smarter hackers

As the next industrial revolution takes centre stage, with smart devices appearing in homes and the workplace, should security matter? With the advent of sensors for car parking spaces, air quality, and room temperature, to video cameras checking on our pets or securing buildings in our offices, homes and schools, should we be concerned if anyone can access our information?

Some would suggest that having an open environment and sharing our data will lead to better outcomes. There are plenty of examples of data being used to make everyday lives easier – for example, smart cities can help to better predict our electricity needs, direct us to parking spaces and bring down CO2 emissions by helping us to avoid traffic. However, the amount of sensitive data driving these changes requires a high level of security.

To be effective, security measures must be robust from the network to the connected device itself. And this doesn’t apply to smart city technology. Connected devices around the home, from automated light controls to home heating, all run from the same network that we use for online activity from shopping to banking – and it only takes one successful attempt on a network to affect all of these different areas.