A Dynamic Competition Model for Evaluating Cybersecurity in a Smart City Network

The smart city concept shifts from traditional networks to distributed systems with self-organization, openness, and shared data, but creating new vulnerabilities attractive to attackers. Rapid digital infrastructure development outpaces cybersecurity tools, requiring continuous assessment and tuning of detectors to maintain security. Existing solutions lack real-time adaptability to fast-spreading attacks in smart city networks and subsystems. This paper proposes a dynamic model to evaluate cybersecurity effectiveness, based on competition for infrastructure influence. The key stability criterion is that attack detection speed must exceed attack propagation speed. Experimental simulation played attack scenarios in a transportation network as a part of a smart city. Testing results confirmed that one configuration met the proposed adequacy criterion, demonstrating effective attack containment. The study highlights the need for dynamic cybersecurity approaches in smart cities to counter evolving cyber threats while maintaining system resiliency. The proposed model provides a framework for real-time security assessment, ensuring detectors adapt to the high-speed attack landscape of distributed systems.