In recent decades Australian cities have evolved to become smarter, utilising rapidly evolving technologies across many sectors, from communication to banking, construction to education and service provision.

For governments, using information communication technology to improve governance remains a priority.

However, if our cities are to avoid risks such as cyber-attacks and climate change, it is imperative they are resilient.

To help strengthen our increasingly smart cities and help guide them to future success, Standards Australia’s Smart Cities Advisory Group has published a position paper that provides a framework for addressing key challenges facing smart cities.

Key findings in the paper – Security and Resilience for Smart Cities - include that smart city practitioners should:

• Adopt standards early to promote the interoperability and security of smart cities solutions, including by incorporating standards into ICT procurement requirements and regulation.  
• Define data custody, use and sharing principles to better manage data flow, use and security.
• Identify interdependencies in interconnected systems to identify vulnerabilities and ensure resilience of systems.

Ian Oppermann - NSW Chief Data Scientist and Standards Australia’s JTC1 National Committee Chair - said that security and resilience were imminent challenges, and standards provide balanced and organised ways of addressing these technological issues.

“Security and resilience can no longer be afterthoughts for devices, systems, or even communities,” he says.

"We have seen the ever-rising impact of natural and man-made disasters in Australia. Fires and floods and now coupled with cyber-attacks and identity theft.”

"Standards help us level the playing field, give us structured ways of addressing complex interconnected systems, and help us strengthen all aspects of our security and resilience," Dr Oppermann concluded.

James Sankar, Co-Chair of the Smart Cities Advisory Group says implementation of standards were an efficient way to address significant challenges.

"Cities face greater uncertainty as a result of intensifying impacts from climate change, geo-political forces impacting supply chains, and changes in the flow of talent to design and manage digital transformations,” he says.

"Standards provide the most efficient form of collective good and best practices to respond in smart and sustainable ways.”

The Security and Resilience for Smart Cities paper report identifies standards most applicable to protecting smart cities and enabling their growth. Some of these standards include:

AS ISO 37123:2020, Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for resilient cities, establishes definitions and methodologies for a set of indicators on resilience in cities: applicable to any city, municipality or local government that seeks to measure its resilience performance and includes core and secondary indicators across 17 thematic areas.

AS ISO/IEC 30146:2020, Information technology — Smart city ICT indicators, defines a comprehensive set of evaluation indicators and supports organisations to measure the performance of ICT in Smart Cities to support security and resilience.  

ISO/IEC 30141:2018, Internet of Things (IoT) — Reference Architecture, ensures IoT systems are safe and reliable by outlining functional requirements such as data and device management as well as non-functional requirements like scalability, security, privacy and usability.

ISO/IEC 27001, Information security management systems – Requirements, specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving information security management systems.

AS 5334-2013, Climate change adaptation for settlements and infrastructure — A risk-based approach, provides principles and guidelines on the management of the risks that settlements and infrastructure face from the impacts of climate change.

The paper also identifies gaps in current standards for future development by Australian stakeholders, including on:

• Guidance on reporting best practice for security and resilience.

• Resilience use cases for renewable energy and smart grids, shared infrastructure and electricity interconnection principles.
• Guidance on obsolescence, particularly of smart devices.

​Click here to view the Security and Resilience Position Paper.

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