Speaking at the official launch of MyLagosApp on Thursday, Governor Sanwo-Olu, represented by his deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, stressed the need for technology-driven governance to manage the challenges that come with Lagos’ unending growth.

“What we manage in Lagos is bigger than most countries in Africa,” he stated, noting that beyond GDP comparisons, the volume of services and infrastructure the state oversees requires innovative solutions.

The governor highlighted key urban issues, including waste management and education, stating that Lagos generates “13,000 metric tonnes of waste daily” and has a primary school population equivalent to “84% of a population.”

With the launch of MyLagosApp, the government aims to streamline access to essential city services, from real-time traffic updates and emergency response coordination to utility payments and business listings. 

The app, developed in collaboration with MTN and several government agencies, is built as a very important link between residents and public services.

“By strategically harnessing technology, we are not only enhancing governance and improving service delivery but also simplifying and enriching the lives of every resident in this very vibrant state,” Hamzat said.

The MyLagosApp is designed to be an inclusive platform, ensuring that residents across all parts of Lagos—“from people on the mainland to the island—can access government services efficiently.”

The governor urged Lagosians to “embrace this app, download it, use it, explore it, and fully utilize the services it offers,” stressing that innovation is a continuous journey and community involvement is essential to the app’s success.

As part of the state’s digital transformation initiatives, Hamzat also revealed plans to integrate real-time tracking for the newly introduced ‘little buses’ under the state’s transportation system, ensuring commuters can access information on bus routes and schedules.

The deputy governor reiterated the administration’s focus on making Lagos a smarter, more efficient, and inclusive city, serving as a model for urban innovation in Africa.

Such attacks not only have a financial impact but also threaten the lives of citizens. Considering that the adoption rate of Internet of Things (IoT) technology in smart cities across the META region is at 71% according to Kaspersky research, and accelerating fast, compromises in these implementations can have potentially devastating consequences.

Today, one of the most pervasive risks is ransomware attacking various government services. Moreover, smart cities are also susceptible to attacks on network equipment and items, such as CCTV cameras, which attackers can gain access to.

Websites and applications connected to IoT are also at risk of exposure. And targeted attacks on infrastructure facilities are serious incidents.

From energy and water management, smart lighting, alarm systems, video surveillance, and others, IoT is a core part of enabling smart cities. It therefore stands to reason that efforts around protecting the environment should encompass every level of the smart city ecosystem – from equipment manufacturers and software developers to service providers and companies that implement and use these solutions.

“Unfortunately, many IoT devices have little or no protection at the software and infrastructure levels. They are often unsupported and have no updates from the vendor.

Implementing IoT solutions on top of existing legacy systems, which were once standalone and unconnected, will also create vulnerable targets for cyberattacks,” says Bethwel Opil, Enterprise Client Lead at Kaspersky in Africa.

To respond to these IoT security challenges and provide help to companies and government departments requiring specific cybersecurity protection, activities on different levels must emerge.

Fortunately, there is a movement towards standardizing the development and implementation of IoT platforms to make them more dependable and secure by design.

“Effectively, smart cities can only be successful when all the stakeholders across specialist IT, business, government, and private sector work effectively together.

No single service provider, government department, or private sector business can try and do everything to deliver the environment for a smart city to succeed.

For example, from a security perspective, Kaspersky contributes to this process by designing and developing components, including IoT gateways and other solutions based on the principles of cyber immunity,” adds Opil.

This cyber immunity approach is a means to create solutions that are virtually impossible to compromise and that minimize the number of potential vulnerabilities.

For smart cities, this means protecting systems for buildings and public services, such as those that enable public administration managers to control the consumption of water and heat – and much more.

In one of Kaspersky’s pilot projects, a hospital was connected to a smart city system so that a utility could securely receive and analyze reliable data.

Thanks to this project, the hospital was able to detect abuse—a neighborhood organization illegally connected to the pipeline and used the water for its own needs, while the hospital paid the bills.

A smart city is a cyber-physical system, meaning both physical safety and digital security are essential for the smooth operation of city services.

Cybersecurity practices for smart cities should include basic measures, such as encryption and strict password policies, vulnerability management, network segmentation and a Zero Trust model, as well as firewalls and dedicated protection for any cloud infrastructures that the smart city’s systems and applications are connected to.

On top of this, dedicated IoT security solutions, such as security gateways, need to be in place to connect IoT devices with business applications while ensuring the security of the communications and data transferring through them.

In organizations where the IT infrastructure is connected to smart city objects and systems, endpoint and network protection with the ability to detect and respond to diverse threats should be used.

Kaspersky IoT Secure Gateway 1000 is the company’s latest cyber immune product for organizations embracing digital transformation, helping them to accelerate business value from new streams of industrial data. The gateway securely connects IoT devices and controllers with business applications and cloud platforms.

“The harmonious fusion of the digital and physical worlds in a smart city can significantly improve citizens’ quality of life, increase the efficiency of urban utilities and strengthen the position of cities in the global digital economy, making them attractive to investors and contributing to dynamic growth. However, cybersecurity measures must be considered every step of the way if such cities of the future are to flourish,” concludes Opil.  

For smart cities, there are a number of best practices to consider when it comes to protecting their IoT environment:

• Keep IoT devices up to date with the latest software and security patches.
• Change default passwords on IoT devices.
• Use strong passwords for all devices connected on the IoT network.
• Check the privacy settings of IoT devices to ensure there are no weak spots.
• Wherever possible, activate multi-factor authentication on devices.