Cyber resilience reference model in the context of Internet of Things in Smart Cities

Abstract

More than half of the world’s population lives in cities and the number increases daily. With the growing urban population, issues arise regarding the use of scarce resources and sustainability. Hence, innovative solutions like IoT are in demand. IoT services within a city can provide smarter and resource-efficient solutions. But the use of IoT also leads to challenges for smart cities, one of these challenges is cyber security. As FBI’s director Robert S. Mueller once stated: “I am convinced that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be.”. If this is applied to smart cities, this leads to significant consequences for the cities. Consequences can be power outage, flooding or unavailable public services as for instance transportation. As recent incidents have shown, cyber attacks are becoming inevitable. Therefore, cyber security is no longer sufficient, but a novel approach of cyber resilience is needed. The goal of this study is to propose a cyber resilience reference model, which can be used by smart cities and its actors....