In my previous NextGov column, I talked about the progress that various municipalities were making in terms of their smart city initiatives, with programs for everything from reducing crime to helping residents find a place to park. It’s clear the quality of life for both residents and visitors rises that as our cities and towns get “smarter.” That’s probably why many of these programs, while administered by state and local officials, are funded by the federal government. In some cases, a federal agency might be a full partner in an initiative.
Smart cities are a pretty cool concept. We may never get to the kind of utopian future predicted by blockbuster sci-fi movies, but eventually, those quality-of-life improvements being developed today will add up to a better life for a lot of people.
But there is a dark side as well. Basically, as our cities get more intelligent, they also get more interconnected, with various systems depending on one another, or at least sharing the same system resources. That makes for a larger attack footprint, and more potentially devastating results from a breach or hack.
Because the concept of smart cities is new, with actual implementations still pretty rare, there has not been a lot of smart city hacking incidents. A couple of years ago someone hacked into the tornado siren network in Dallas, which was in the process of automating those warnings. The hacker sounded the alarm, panicking some residents, but there was no permanent damage.
Even though smart city hacks are rare, the seeds for that possibility have apparently been planted. Experts recently told Wired magazine that many of the sm ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
