Privacy Concerns, IoT Devices and Attacks in Smart Cities

The advancement of technology and wide adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) across the board will soon make the smart city a reality. Many governments are currently planning on rapidly transforming their cities into smart cities, while others are currently building new smart cities. These smart cities demand the installation of millions and in some cases billions of devices across the cities, homes and other institutions and different embedded systems and networks. Combined, these systems produce tons of data that can be used in different contexts. For the most part, proponents of smart cities reference the benefits of this implementation such as improved user experiences and security associated with improved monitoring capabilities. However, there have been concerns regarding privacy and how these capabilities can be misused by governments, private corporations, and malicious attackers. A potential solution to improve privacy while not infringing upon security is to implement blockchain technology which uses a combination of consensus and encryption algorithms. This paper will discuss the use of a fully homomorphic algorithm to encrypt data in such a way that maintains the user’s privacy and allows them complete control over their data.