Page 454 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

management tools in order to ensure that services return to their normal operational status, and to
minimize the disturbance caused to users.

Ultimately, modern cities compete with each other to attract businesses, talent, skills and taxpayers.
As a result, administrations are increasingly valuing the role of innovation, technology, marketing
and communication practices. In turn, private sector companies are attracted into cities by the ease
of doing business – in terms of cost efficiency, infrastructure (e.g. office space, broadband,
telecommunications, as well as utilities such as energy, water and transportation), and general
quality of life for their staff (e.g. residential, health care and educational systems).
The adoption of effective governance structures as part of SSC strategies is closely linked to the
effectiveness of cybersecurity measures. It is vital to ensure adequate preparedness and operational
efficiency, as well as to take advantage of opportunities, address emerging needs, and overcome
the security challenges faced by smart sustainable cities. Further information on SSC governance
can be found in the FG‐SSC Technical Report on “Engaging stakeholders for smart sustainable
9
cities” .

9 Recommendations to ensure SSC service continuity

Smart sustainable cities should prioritize providers who offer solutions and methodologies for
security, backup, data loss prevention, archiving and disaster recovery, and who are able to protect
and manage heterogeneous environments resulting from legacy systems and newer deployments,
including open source, managed mobile devices, and virtualized systems.

 Protecting information proactively

SSC contexts increasingly involve big data considerations, and subsequently the need to centralize
and manage the vast amount of information that is continuously generated and used. Taking an
information‐centric approach, embedding security within data and taking a content‐aware
approach to protecting information, is vital for identifying ownership of: (a) the location of sensitive
information, and (b) who has access to it. Classifying data and utilizing encryption helps to secure
sensitive information and to restrict access to unauthorized individuals.

 Authenticating users
Strong authentication enables organizations to protect public assets by verifying the true identity of
a smart device, system or application. This prevents individuals from accidentally disclosing
credentials to an attack site, and from attaching unauthorized devices to the infrastructure.
 Leveraging threat intelligence

In order to understand the major attack trends, city officials and CIOs can count on an established
observatory, like the Global Intelligence Network, to provide one of the most extensive and accurate
vendor‐neutral analyses of trends on malware, security threats and vulnerabilities from security
research centers around the world. The same information is also used to compile the annual
Internet Security Threat Report, which contains vital information about current and emerging
threats and vulnerabilities.

9 FG‐SSC deliverable, Technical Report on engaging stakeholders for smart sustainable cities. Available at:
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU‐T/focusgroups/ssc/Pages/default.aspx

444 ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications