The Australian Cyber Security Centre has launched a comprehensive new smart cities resource put together in collaboration with leading international security agencies across the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

The guide says while smart cities can foster innovative and sustainable communities they also heighten risks to security and critical infrastructure, and organisations implementing smart city technologies need to factor this in to general risk management.

It contains detailed information across a wide range of areas including incident response plan basics, secure cloud computing, supply chain risk assessments, zero trust approaches and state sponsored attacks.

“Smart cities may create safer, more efficient, more resilient communities through technological innovation and data-driven decision-making; however, this opportunity also introduces potential vulnerabilities that, if exploited, could impact national security, economic security, public health and safety, and critical infrastructure operations,” the guide warns.

“Cyber threat activity against OT systems is increasing globally, and the interconnection between OT systems and smart city infrastructure increases the attack surface and heightens the potential consequences of compromise.”

The guide provides three broad recommendations:

Secure planning and design – this includes multi-factor authentication, zero trust architecture, protection of internet facing services and applying patching systems and applications in a timely manner.

Proactive supply chain risk management – clear requirements for software, hardware and IoT supply chains and regular review of agreements with third party vendors

Operational resilience strategies – clear workforce training, incident response and  recovery plans.

The guide also contains links to cyber risk management from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the US National Security Agency, the FBI, the UK National Cyber Security Centre, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and the NZ National Cyber Security Centre.