Smart City Security (IoT): Security threats and vulnerabilities faced by smart road traffic control systems

This research paper analyses the security-related issues of the smart city and discusses the concept of IoT in the smart city. It analyses the security issues occur in traffic control and vehicular communication and suggests security tools to address the security threats.

Smart City Security (IoT)

SMART CITY SECURITY (IOT)
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Smart City Security (IoT): Security threats and vulnerabilities faced by smart road traffic
control systems
ABSTRACT
A smart city is designed, developed and
controlled with the help of IoT technology and it
has become an emerging phenomenon with
rapid urban growth and boost in the area of
information technology. Smart cities use IoT
technology to manage traffic signals, monitors
home appliance and handles transportation. The
main aim of this research paper is to address the
security-related issues of the smart city and
discuss the concept of IoT in the smart city. A
literature has been conducted in this paper to
analyse the concept of the internet of thing in
smart city and security issues occur in traffic
control and vehicular communication. Firewall
software, biometric recognition, cryptography
and encryption technology all these security
tools can be involved to address the security
threats.
Keywords: IoT, smart city, encryption, cyber
–attack, and cryptography.
INTRODUCTION
A smart city is defined as an advanced city that
involves modern information technologies for
communication purpose such as IoT and wireless
networks. Internet of thing plays an important in
the sector of the smart city that provides a
platform to transfer data or information from
one location to another [1]. The main objective
of this research paper is to analysis the
drawbacks and security threats faced by the
smart city (IoT) and provide the prevention
tools to secure vehicle communication and
smart traffic system. Malware attack,
ransomware and wanna cry, denial of service
attack and data breach are common security
issues occur into traffic control system [2]. This
report is explaining the concept of IoT in the
smart city, challenges faced by smart city and
mitigation tools to secure the smart city. To
improve the effectiveness of this research a
literature review will be conducted that collect
the views of other experts, research gap in
previous investigation and findings of these
studies which help to identify the key factors
that increase the security issues related to smart
traffic control [10].
Research Questions
 What are security threats and
vulnerabilities related to the smart
traffic control system and how to
mitigate them?
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF EXISTING
LITERATURE
The term smart city is defined as a new industry
that uses information and communication
technology along with the environment of urban
areas. Internet of thing is an advanced
technology that has the ability to improve the
communication system and it involves internet
connectivity to transfer data or information.
There are numbers of researcher investigated on
the topic of smart city security and they
analysed that lack of security is one of the
common problems that increases cyber-attacks
and data breach problems. It is observed that
many urban cities faced the transportation

SMART CITY SECURITY (IOT)
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problem due to which many people move
towards that smart city. Ji, et al. (2014) observed
that security threats of transportation systems
and smart cities has been a growing research
area in last two years but most efforts are
focused on the traffic control system. The traffic
system controlled by the IoT technology and the
data breach problem occur into this system due
to lack of security consciousness. Author, also
analysed that the traffic system uses the
internet connectivity by which hackers can easily
enter into the network system. In year 2014, the
rate of cyber-attacks in road traffic system has
increased by 26% because many people use the
unauthentic networks which are developed by
attackers for hacking purpose [3]. Researcher
provides the overview of smart cities and traffic
control system that will help readers to enhance
their knowledge in the area of internet of thing.
Recent study evaluated that criminal uses the
malicious software to control and manage the
traffic lights and the problem of cyber-crime
occur when any consumer click on unwanted
signals. Memos, et al., (2018) discussed about
IoT and smart traffic system and analysed that
the use of IoT in smart traffic system is growing
rapidly because it has potential to control and
manage the road traffics from any location. It is
observed that hackers use the malicious
software and botnet process to explore the
vulnerabilities and threats in the field of traffic
control [12]. In which they first generate the
large amount of traffic signals and transfer to
the networks of road system [3]. After that they
use the high level algorithm to enter into their
system and hack the traffic networks. The main
aim of the smart city is to use vigour and power
inefficient method and improve the
communication system. Perera, et al. (2014)
provide their views on this topic and they
observed that in future IoT will change the way
of communication and the smart city will
improve the efficiency of the data
communication. Vehicular communication is the
very best example of a smart city that provides a
new way too many cars developers and today
many cars can be controlled from home or any
location. But the main problem occurs with this
is a privacy issue because IoT is not much secure
due to which hackers can access users accounts
and they can block their data [4]. The smart
traffic control system is one of the best
applications of IoT smart city because today
traffic on road is the very common problem but
IoT provided a process by which issue of high
traffic has been resolved. Petrolo, Loscri, and
Mitton, (2017) analysed that smart city has the
potential to control and monitor traffic, home
appliances, and other problems by using
information technology. Rathore, et al. (2016)
explained the smart city sensors that provide
multiple opportunities for smart cities such as
wireless networks, internet of thing and many
more. It is estimated that the rate of IoT
technology has been increased by 40% in the
last few years because it is a more effective
approach to control devices and equipment’s
used in the home [5]. The security of vehicular
communication can be increased by adopting
advanced security tools such as firewall,
encryption and cryptography. Due to the rapid
growth of the technologies the rate of cyber-
crimes is also increasing very fast and hackers
use malware software to produce unauthentic
servers after that they send traffic on IoT
networks [11]. According to Stankovic, (2014)
vehicular communication data are one of the
most significant sources in smart cities by using
the data sets consumers can take benefit of
information technology [6]. With the help of this
process, consumers can identify the arrival time
to a destination and the issue of data breach
occur into vehicular communication. To avoid
such kind of problem Stankovic, (2014)
described numbers of methods such as robust,
antivirus and back up plans.

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MITIGATION
A smart city is completely based on the internet
of thing and it is a very popular technology to
control and manage different devices or
equipment. The main advantage of IoT
technology is that it has the capability to
interconnect two or more peripheral devices at
a time [9]. There are few drawbacks of this
technique which are described below:
 Very complex to design and implement
 Compatibility
 Less secure and private
 Required numbers of hardware’s and
software’s
The main limitation of IoT in the smart city is
that it cannot be able to handle large computer
network due to which large business industries
does not adopt this technology. To handle the
problem of cyber-crimes information technology
developed the advanced security systems like
encryption, cryptography and robust
technology. If consumer adopts such techniques
in their networks and servers then they can
improve the security of traffic system. Recent
study evaluated that encryption is one of the
advanced security step that has potential to
identify the unwanted signals from road traffic
system. During communication process
individual can adopt the encoding and decoding
processes because it converts the information
into a form of coding that reduce the chance of
hacking. According to my opinion users should
use only authentic networks and system
because most hackers use the unauthentic
networks to enter into traffic system. In future,
this research will describes the security tools
and techniques in details and reduce the
drawback of the previous research. It is
suggested that more research should be
conducted in the road traffic control and
vehicular communication which will help to
handle the security threats and vulnerabilities of
smart traffic control [7]. There are few steps by
which security of smart city (IoT) can be
enhanced:
 Adopt a risk-driven process
 Use only authentic servers
 Update software on a regular basis
 Process data with private networks
 Use firewall and antivirus software [8].
CONCLUSION
This report is completely based on smart city
security and with the help of this paper readers
can enhance their knowledge in the field of a
smart city. Today, many people move towards
smart city because they required to control and
manage home appliance from any location. This
report described the concept of IoT in the smart
city and security challenges faced by smart city
and also explained methods to avoid cyber-
crimes and security issues. People should ensure
that they use only authentic servers to send data
from one place to another and they can adopt a
firewall and fingerprint technology to improve
the security of data.

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