Cybercrime issues in smart cities networks and prevention using ethical hacking

Abstract

Today, the need for security and data protection has increased because of the increase in Internet use. In today’s era, all industries have digitally moved their data to cloud platforms that bring new data protection issues and challenges especially in IoT and Smart cities networks. Internet of Things (IoT) is a growing field in today’s world that offers reliable and consistent communication via wireless and wired connections and generate a huge amount of data. Therefore, it is essential to ensure the security and reliability of generated data. IoT systems and networks should have strong security mechanism to protect users’ private data and processed information. Internet development and usability have brought numerous challenges in term of online frauds, hacking, and phishing activities, spamming and many others. According to Cybersecurity Ventures survey, cybercrime damages could cost the world $6 trillion per annum by 2021. This information shows growing number of Internet frauds, the finances losses and cybercrime in the coming era for every industry. Without adequate awareness and comprehensive knowledge, it has become difficult to defend against such practices. Ethical Hacking allows users and businesses to scrutinize their systems and networks vulnerabilities, take proper measures to protect their network and systems against unlawful and malicious attacks. It also strengthens network and systems by identifying common vulnerabilities, scrutinize, and taking proper security measures. Kali Linux Operating System (OS) is known as the most sophisticated penetration testing tool to perform Ethical Hacking. In this chapter, we addressed latest information regarding IoT and Smart City networks worldwide in terms of financial and data losses. We have also discussed the Ethical Hacking terminologies along with various kinds of social engineering and phishing attacks could occur on IoT and smart cities networks. We have performed several social engineering experiments using Kali Tools to demonstrate identification of common mistakes in web-based applications and smart networks for the apprentices. In the end, we have proposed some appropriate solutions to strengthen against hackers.