COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY FRAMEWORKS FOR SAFEGUARDING IOT DEVICES IN SMART CITIES: ADDRESSING AUTHENTICATION, ENCRYPTION, ACCESS CONTROL, AND ANOMALY DETECTION
Rajina R. Mohamed, Abdilahi Liban, Waheeb Abu-Ulbeh, Helmi Murad Ebrahim, Yousef A. Baker El–Ebiary · JOURNAL OF MECHANICS OF CONTINUA AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES · 2025
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in smart cities has revolutionized urban living, offering unparalleled convenience, efficiency, and connectivity. By interconnecting various aspects of city infrastructure, from transportation and utilities to public services and governance, IoT technologies promise to optimize resource allocation, enhance service delivery, and improve the overall quality of life for citizens. However, the integration of IoT in smart cities introduces significant security challenges, including vulnerabilities, privacy concerns, interoperability issues, and threats to critical infrastructure. This paper proposes a comprehensive security framework that addresses these challenges through a layered approach incorporating authentication, encryption, access control, and anomaly detection mechanisms. The framework is evaluated against existing solutions and benchmarked not only against statistical baselines but also against optimization-driven cost models to provide a fair comparative analysis. Furthermore, scalability and real-time feasibility are assessed under realistic data ingestion rates, and sensitivity analysis is applied to quantify the relative influence of security parameters. The findings indicate that the proposed framework significantly improves the resilience, scalability, and interpretability of IoT security mechanisms, thereby enabling smarter and safer urban ecosystems.