Cybersecurity awareness and education: A necessary parameter for smart communities

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are responsible for the transformation of societies, nations and the world at large. ICTs are considered to improve the quality of life for citizens as they bring about easiness and usefulness to perform day-to-day tasks. Most significantly, ICTs have paved way to ‘smart’ communities whereby citizens integrate various forms of technologies in the different contexts of life. It is known however, that ICTs introduce numerous cybersecurity risks. The problem this paper addresses is that cybersecurity awareness and education in smart communities is not given the precedence it warrants. The paper therefore argues that a community cannot be deemed as ‘smart’ if it is not ‘cyber smart’. As such, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate and highlight the cybersecurity challenges that are prevalent in smart communities.