Cybersecurity for smart buildings
As buildings become more connected, they are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks continue to rise year on year and infrastructure is a common target. An attack can have devasting consequences, from exposing sensitive information and shutting down or disrupting critical building services to compromising occupant safety. The estimated average costs of a data breach are 4.24 million USD. Ransomware attacks can create safety issues as hackers disable locks, alarms, elevators, and other critical building controls to prevent people from exiting or entering the building.
Buildings are an attractive target since they are often not well protected and have critical control systems. They often contain other non-building-related IT databases and systems. In an earlier chapter, we highlighted that the Target store data breach a few years back resulted from hackers entering their confidential database through the HVAC system vendor’s portal...
