Publish date | 06 July 2019 |
Issue Number | 1789 |
Diary | Legalbrief eLaw |
In countries like the US, the growth of smart buildings is estimated to reach 16.6% by 2020. Smart buildings use technology to control a wide range of variables within their respective environments with the aim of providing more comfort and contributing to the health and productivity of the people inside them. To do so, they use so-called Building Automation Systems (BAS). With the arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart buildings have redefined themselves. With the information they obtain from smart sensors, their technological equipment is used to analyse, predict, diagnose and maintain the various environments within them, as well as to automate processes and monitor numerous operational variables in real time. In a Fin24 analysis, Carey van Vlaanderen notes that ambient temperature, lighting, security cameras, elevators, parking and water management are just some of the automatable services currently supported by the technology. ‘At first glance, we may not see any security risk in these smart buildings. It is likely, however, that at some point the entire smart network is connected to a single database, and that is where the risk is. Particularly if we consider that many IoT devices are manufactured by different suppliers, who may not have paid due attention to security considerations during their design and manufacturing process. The risk of a security incident taking place in an intelligent building is linked to the motivations of cyber criminals, who mainly seek to achieve economic gain through their actions, as well as to impact and spread fear.’