Tag Archive for: Cities

The Emergence Of Smart Cities In The Digital Era

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Realizing the potential of Smart Cities will require public-private cooperation and security by design.

The idea of smart cities is starting to take shape as the digital era develops. A city that has developed a public-private infrastructure to support waste management, energy, transportation, water resources, smart building technology, sustainability, security operations and citizen services is referred to as a “smart city”. Realizing the potential of Smart Cities will require public-private cooperation and security by design.

A smart city functions as an applied innovation lab. Automation, robotics, enabling nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence (human/computer interface), printed electronics and photovoltaics, wearables (flexible electronics), and information technologies like real-time and predictive analytics, super-computing, 5G wireless networks, secure cloud computing, mobile devices, and virtualization are a few of the fascinating technological trends of the digital era that are influencing the development of smart cities.

Cities have become “smarter” overall as a result of the shift from analog to digital technologies in recent years. Such cooperation entails facilitating coordinated operational actions. It includes exchanging situational awareness as well.

Smart cities save costs and resource consumption, increase public participation, and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of municipal services through the use of digital technology for information and communication. These types of digital technologies are utilized by smart cities to facilitate information and communication, reduce expenses and resource consumption, enhance public participation, and improve the efficacy and efficiency of municipal services.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are already impacting the design and operations of Smart Cities. One of the areas that AI and ML can support is facilitating architectural designs and building for optimum ergonomics and performance. Also, AI and ML can facilitate Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) products by integrating orchestration processes, automation,…

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Cities battle to keep their computer systems safe from cyberattacks

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (June 2, 2023) – Hackers continue to make more frequent and sophisticated attempts to infiltrate municipalities and government computer systems. In the past month, Augusta, Georgia, and Dallas, Texas, are among the cities that have seen system breaches. Some of the unauthorized access is simply people clicking on a wrong link while others are premeditated attempts to steal data through the breach.

They aren’t easy to defend, but everyone, including individuals, governments and businesses, need to be vigilant with their protocols and security.

Michael Nowatkowski is the head of the cyber program of study in the School of Computer and Cyber Sciences at Augusta University and knows there are a lot of bad actors out there.

“There’s potential if they are able to get onto your system that it would be something like ransomware, where they would prevent you from using your data,” said Nowatkowski.

He added it might not be just for monetary gain. They could simply eavesdrop and collect data without anyone’s knowledge.

“You want to find them as quickly as possible so they can’t perform these malicious activities or sit in a dormant state just collecting data for a long period of time,” he added.

When it comes to attacks on cities, Nowatkowski said the bad actors may just want to discredit the city or agency by defacing their web pages. Other cases, they may force a ransomware attack to get money out of the city to re-access their data.

He added it’s a challenge to prepare and defend for the attacks, as you never know what the attack vector is going to be.

“For cities to defend, they always have to be vigilant. They should try to encourage their users to use the systems responsibly. User education is a very big step and is a proactive step in defending your networks,” said Nowatkowski.

He also said if an attack did happen, it’s important to look for ways to prevent future attacks, try to figure out the root cause of how the attack happened and put measures into place to prevent them from happening in the future. This may include having a third party come in and do an assessment of the network to look for vulnerabilities.

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I was FBI’s most wanted hacker ‘Mafiaboy’ – I’m now terrified cyber attacks can bring down entire CITIES

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A BORED teenager “broke the internet” in one of the most infamous hacking attacks of all time – turning him overnight into one of the world’s most wanted men.

Michael Calce was just 15 when he brought down the biggest sites on the web, became the target of an FBI manhunt, and landed himself in prison.

Michael Calce was the infamous hacker known as 'Mafiaboy'

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Michael Calce was the infamous hacker known as ‘Mafiaboy’Credit: MICHAEL CALCE
As a 15-year-old he masterminded one of the worst cyberattacks America had ever seen

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As a 15-year-old he masterminded one of the worst cyberattacks America had ever seenCredit: Getty

The teenager managed to temporarily topple some of the world’s largest websites, including Amazon, eBay and Yahoo!

Now 39-years-old, Michael told The Sun Online how since breaking the internet, he’s spent the rest of his life trying to protect it.

The former hacker turned cybersecurity chief warned the world is not ready for a new terrifying frontier in cyber-warfare, which “scares the living daylights” out of him.

The need for protection of online services is greater than ever, with so many critical services and systems dependent on the tech.

I was a hacker raided by FBI - US is going to throw the book at Pentagon leaker
Inside the internet underworld where nerds are paid thousands to become hackers

He warned that hackers now have the power to weaponize infrastructure against whole populations – something as simple as hacking into a water treatment centre could poison thousands.

“The shock factor of a missile hitting a power grid has an immediate effect,” Calce explains. “A hacker sitting behind a computer and shutting down the grid doesn’t have the same effect, but the reality is the same.”

These current threats, he says, are far more serious than his own “internet breaking” onslaught back in 2000.

Michael’s hack attack caused an estimated $1.2billion worth of damage and landed him in a youth prison for eight months.

But havoc-causing aside, he exposed just how weak and vulnerable those early years of the internet were.

In a little less than a few minutes, a talented kid playing around on his computer had sent America spiralling with the knowledge that a new frontier of warfare had arrived – cyberattacks. 

“Imagine you’re 15 years old, and the president of the United States is talking about you and saying that they’re looking for you,” he tells The Sun Online.

Michael, who went by the online alias of Mafiaboy, had become public enemy number one in North…

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Cities, theme parks adopt new weapons detection technology to curb gun violence

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Weapons detection screening systems are becoming more and more common. These systems use touchless sensors to screen for objects that look like weapons in people’s pockets or backpacks, then they feed that information back to a computer system where security guards can view it.

In Detroit, city leaders hope the technology can be used to prevent gun violence.

As WDET’s Eli Newman reports, that means bringing security checkpoints to public spaces.

This story originally appeared on “Marketplace” on Aug. 11, 2022.

Weapons detection screening systems are popping up in many places — think metal detectors 2.0. Disney World and Six Flags have them, and more and more school districts screen students through one every day as they enter school.

In Detroit, city leaders hope the technology can be used to cut down on gun violence as they bring security checkpoints to public spaces. As part of the city’s celebrations around the Fourth of July, crowds of people headed to the riverfront to get a good view of the annual fireworks show. It was the first one since the pandemic started and thousands showed up to watch from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs.

The spectacle brought Tony Semenuk down to watch. Up until this year, the St. Clair Shores, Michigan, resident had been hesitant to attend.

“Every year that you come down here, they light fireworks off and you don’t know if they’re gunshots,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve been down here in six years.”

Semenuk noted the big difference at the fireworks show this year — the Detroit Police Department sectioned off the best place to watch the fireworks and created a temporary “weapons detection zone.”

The Detroit Police Department fenced off Hart Plaza, requiring attendees to walk through an Evolv Technology weapons detection gate checkpoint.
The Detroit Police Department fenced off Hart Plaza, requiring attendees to walk through an Evolv Technology weapons detection gate. (Eli Newman/WDET)

Before people entered, they had to go through a weapons detection checkpoint. There were rows of gates with little cameras on them as people walk past to be screened. Taliyah Brown was there working for a private security company hired to manage the system for the fireworks. She monitored a tablet to see if…

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