Open AccessAssessing and mitigating cybersecurity risks of traffic light systems in smart cities
Author(s) -
Li Zhiyi,
Jin Dong,
Han Christopher,
Shahidehpour Mohammad,
Wang Jianhui
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
iet cyber‐physical systems: theory and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 7
ISSN - 2398-3396
DOI - 10.1049/iet-cps.2016.0017
Subject(s) - computer security , software deployment , computer science , traffic congestion , critical infrastructure , regret , risk analysis (engineering) , transport engineering , business , engineering , machine learning , operating system
Intelligent traffic lights are critical cyber‐physical systems that help smart cities to cut road congestion and vehicle emissions. However, they also open a new frontier of cybersecurity. Security researchers have demonstrated ways to compromise the traffic lights to cause potential traffic disruption and public safety degradation. This study aims to raise the public awareness of the cybersecurity issues in traffic light systems. The authors present a bi‐level game‐theoretic framework for assessing cybersecurity risks of traffic light systems, as the first step towards understanding and mitigating the security vulnerabilities. Additionally, they propose a minimax‐regret‐based methodology to guide the deployment of defensive measures in traffic light systems against cyberattacks.