With the rise of smart cities comes the concerns about the economic realities of aging infrastructures, outdated transportation modes, and insufficient affordable housing, as well as cyber concerns.
Microsoft introduced its Model National Cybersecurity Strategy last year to help Governments make the complex challenge of cyber security easier to manage from a public policy perspective, and has launched a new whitepaper,“Developing a City Strategy for Cybersecurity”,recognising that cities are facing similar challenges to creating a unified approach to cyber security as businesses.
“These cities cannot wait for its national-level policymakers to implement cyber security policies, but rather cities must act now to protect the assets, systems and networks vital to maintain its stability and resiliency,” the authors Paul Nicholas and Cristin Goodwin said.
The whitepaper ontains seven steps to help city leaders develop or improve their cyber security strategies and to work within other transformational programs aimed at increasing resilience. These are:
- Build a risk-based approach to cybersecurity
- Set clear priorities
- Define minimum ICT security baselines
- Share and coordinate threat and vulnerability information
- Build incident response capabilities
- Boost public awareness, education, and workforce training
- Enable public, private, and academic cooperation
