An analysis of 20 smart cities by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has revealed significant cybersecurity risks, including malware infections, botnet attacks, and poorly configured networks. The study, conducted in collaboration with Kaspersky and released on February 17, identified trojans and botnets as some of the most common threats, exacerbated by weak network security protocols.

"The most common vulnerability was allowing remote connections to unauthorised systems," the report noted, though the cities involved were not named.

As smart cities increasingly rely on digital networks, these vulnerabilities pose serious risks to public service delivery and citizens' data protection. The report highlighted that trojans like Avalanche-Andromeda and Gamarue were prevalent in western, central, and northern India, enabling remote system access and electronic espionage.

Meanwhile, botnet infections such as Socks5Systemz were the primary concern in southern cities. These malicious programmes allow infected systems to act as proxies, potentially involving them in criminal activities without their owners' knowledge.

Many cities also had misconfigured Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) settings, which could allow unauthorised access or lead to denial-of-service attacks.

CERT-In recommends that smart cities adopt a multi-layered cybersecurity approach, focusing on network segmentation, stronger IoT security, and real-time threat monitoring. Ensuring compliance with national cybersecurity guidelines, incident reporting, and regular penetration testing are crucial steps in mitigating these risks.