AP Chief Minister Mr Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone for the new Capital City of Andhra Pradesh to be known as Amaravati. The City is to be developed as a “Smart City”. Knowing the cyber savvy nature of Mr Chandra Babu Naidu and the opportunity to build the capital city with a Zero based planning, it is possible that Amaravati can come up as an ideal smart city which is the dream of Mr Narendra Modi.
While we watch the developments as they unfold, we once again reiterate that the success of the concept of “Smart City” is closely associated with the Cyber Security plans that are implemented when the smart city is built brick by brick. As if to remind everyone about the vulnerabilities associated with the dependence on “Information” in Governance, US Government has announced its apprehensions of a major hacking of its federal information systems by China. (Read the article in Independent here).
A Smart City by its very concept is highly susceptible to information security vulnerabilities since its critical resources such as Electricity Supply, Water Supply, Road Transport, Health system etc will be vulnerable to terrorist attacks and cyber warfare. We are not sure if managers of other smart cities are capable of understanding these risks and taking appropriate security measures but feel that Mr Chandrababu Naidu is one who can understand the risks and take such steps which would form a guideline to other smart cities in India.
We therefore congratulate Mr Naidu on laying of the foundation stone for Amaravati, and at the same time urge him to lay the foundation stone for an appropriate “Smart City Cyber Security Framework” which is technologically sound.
We reiterate that the technologically sound cyber security framework should also be supported by a “Smart City Cyber Law Framework” which takes into account the issues surrounding Big Data and Internet of Things. Aditionally people involved must be adequately trained and motivated to implement the information security as a backbone to the city’s law and order eco system.
Naavi.org will try to present the major information security issues to be tackled by a Smart City one by one. I request all security professionals to consider contributing to this knowledge base in the form of articles on various issues involved in securing the Smart City cyber systems. The articles and comments can be sent to naavi@vsnl.com with a brief profile of the author, for publication in Naavi.org. Students of Technical and Legal institutions are also welcome to contribute.
Naavi
