Draft #1 Summary_ Reader Response:“Smart Buildings: What 'smart' really means”

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In the article “Smart Buildings: What 'smart' really means”, Lecomte (2019) states that having certification with standardized metrics is fundamental for smart buildings to wholly emerge in the "built environment". According to the article, the lack of unanimity from various stakeholders has delayed the drafting of standardized rubrics. Hence, private and public sectors design their own metrics to assess smart buildings but their rubrics vary from one another. However, the article also states that current private and public metrics have been unsuccessful in tackling the complicated and expanding aspect that buildings will perform in "smart cities". Lecomte emphasizes that one crucial component needed to be included in the standardized rubrics will be cyber risk management as cyber threats "increase exponentially" along with more advanced and integrated technology in smart buildings. Lecomte concludes that holistic and reliable "smart building certifications and rubrics" will be the foundation of a "functioning market for smart real estate".

 The author states that the cyber-risk management should be the focal point in assessing smart buildings. However, the article lacks in elaboration on the consequences of a successful cyber-attack in smart buildings and hence the significance of cyber-risk management is not established. The emphasis on the importance of cyber-risk management is required to support its inclusion in the rubrics as well as to proof why it is considered a critical aspect when assessing smart building.

 First of all, Lecomte says that financial loss can be the result of cyber-threats. However, cyber-threats does not only affect economic aspect but also causes safety issues to the occupants in smart buildings. The incident of a successful cyber-attack on Southern California hospital has shown that cyber-threats can prove to be detrimental to the safety of the occupants. Alan Mihalic (2017) states that the services in the hospital are disrupted and patients with urgent conditions have to be send to other hospital nearby. The other incident which shows cyber-threats that affect human safety will be cyber-attack in petrochemical plant. The article claims that investigators of the cyber-attack believes that the primary aim of the hacker is to disrupt operations and set off an explosion (Nicole Perlroth & Clifford Krauss, 2018). However, cyber-threats does not only affect the safety of people in designated buildings like hospital and chemical plant. Tess Bennett (2019) imply that "Insecure systems could be exploited to take building hostage - possibly by disabling the lifts or building entry systems". Plausible cyber-threats can even occur in common building services like lift system. Cyber-threats clearly shows how it can affect the safety of the occupants in the buildings. Hence, cyber-risk management is essential in countering the potential cyber-threats.
Secondly, stating the benefits of cyber-risk management in cases of cyber breach can display the value of cyber-risk management. Having cyber-risk management would mean acquiring strategy to resolve cyber-threats and mitigate loss in the least amount of time. Rob Sobers (2019) observe that statistic have proven that “On average, companies take about 197 days to identify and 69 days to contain a breach according to IBM. This lengthy amount of time costs businesses millions of dollars. Companies that contain a breach in less than 30 days save more than $1 million in comparison to those who take longer.”. As cyber-risks in technology are inevitable, cyber-risk management has to be in place to reduce the loss. This shows the importance of cyber-risk management and why it needs to be included when assessing smart buildings.
Lastly, Lecomte only states that cyber-threats can result in huge financial loss. However, financial loss is the result of many problems arises from cyber breach in smart buildings. The possible outcomes of a cyber breach include damaged equipment as well as intangible assets like reputation and customers' trust. Cyber breach is capable of disrupt customer service and putting customer data at risk. Maddie Davis (2019) mention that the survey statistics has shown "65% of data breach victims reporting lost trust in an organization as a result of a breach".Resolving and recovering from cyber breach are both time consuming and costly. If cyber breach is not handled promptly and effectively, the damage done might be irrecoverable and will lead to shutting down of building. "The company has said that, thanks to their quick response, data back-up was overall intact, enabling them to recover in a structured and efficient way...some smaller ones have paid the ultimate price for insecurity, as they were forced to permanently close their doors due to these attacks." Zeljka Zorz (2019). Therefore, showing the two extreme sides of having and not having cyber-risk management shows how important cyber-risk management can be.


 In conclusion, cyber-risk management is a system that helps to resolve cyber-attack which technologies are vulnerable to. It is important to consider all the incidents that happened with regards to technology as the cyber-attack on these technologies can potentially happen in smart buildings. Although there might be arguments where cyber-risk management cannot fully prevent cyber-risk, cyber-risk management is still important to help to prevent recurrence of similar incident and serve as a platform to improve on.





References:

1) Lecomte, P. (2019, January 28). Smart Buildings: What 'smart' really means. Retrieved from https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/smart-buildings-what-smart-really-means.

2) Mihalic, A. (2017, August 21). Protecting Smart Buildings from Cyber Attacks. Retrieved from https://www.engineering.com/BIM/ArticleID/15476/Protecting-Smart-Buildings-from-Cyber-Attacks.aspx.

3) Sobers, R. (2019, March 13). Data Breach Response Times: Trends and Tips: Varonis. Retrieved from https://www.varonis.com/blog/data-breach-response-times/.

4) Perlroth, N., & Krauss, C. (2018, March 15). A Cyberattack in Saudi Arabia Had a Deadly Goal. Experts Fear Another Try. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/technology/saudi-arabia-hacks-cyberattacks.html.

5) Bennett, T. B. T. (2019, September 24). COVER STORY: Property industry responds as smart buildings open up new cybersecurity threats - Which-50. Retrieved from https://which-50.com/cover-story-property-industry-responds-as-smart-buildings-open-up-new-cyber-security-threats/.

6) Davis, M. (2019, August 16). 4 Damaging After-Effects of a Data Breach. Retrieved from https://www.cybintsolutions.com/4-damaging-after-effects-of-a-data-breach/.

 7) Zorz, Z. (2019, October 1). Danish company Demant expects to suffer huge losses due to cyber attack. Retrieved from https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2019/10/01/demant-cyber-attack/.

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