Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an innovative and revolutionary technology. It promises to serve humanity and improve our lives by integrating a huge number of heterogeneous end devices and providing diverse interesting services. However, security remains the main key for the success of any technology. In this paper, we aim to provide structural guidelines to secure IoT-based smart cities. We should consider the IoT-based functional requirements in parallel with the security requirements based on the security triad: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. Moreover, we should consider the security challenges of smart cities based on the cube: Big data, Resource limitation, Interoperability, and Scalability. We then present solutions to the main threats. Finally, we assess vulnerabilities of some services offered in an IoT-based smart cities context. We show that current available services still suffer from several vulnerabilities and need associated security countermeasures for the success of the IoT-based smart cities.