Accenture. En la imagen, Enrique DomÃnguez.Rosa DÃaz Moles, director of public sector at S2GRUPO, also highlights smart cities’ complexity and their resulting cybersecurity issues.The digital transformation of public services involves “an accelerated convergence between IT and OT systems, as well as the massive incorporation of connected IoT devices,” she explains, which gives rise to challenges such as an expanding attack surface or the coexistence of obsolete infrastructure with modern ones, in addition to a lack of visibility and control over devices deployed by multiple providers.She also warns of multiple cases where there is no security architecture adapted to the new urban model, as well as a lack of maturity in the deployment of these infrastructures and their limited real-time detection and response capacity.”According to the European Cyber “‹”‹Security Organisation, 86% of European local governments with IoT deployments have suffered some security breach related to these devices,” she says.Accenture’s DomÃnguez adds that the challenge is to consider “the fragmentation of responsibilities between administrations, concessionaires, and third parties, which complicates cybersecurity governance and requires advanced coordination models.”De la Cuesta also emphasizes the siloed nature of project development, which significantly hinders the development of an active cybersecurity strategy.
Spanish smart cities address the cyber challenge: Here in Spain, some cities’ projects have earned them notoriety as international smart city pioneers. In the 2025 Smart City Index, conducted by the IMD World Competitiveness Center, four Spanish cities are among the 146 leading smart cities in the world: Bilbao (29th place), Madrid (38th), Zaragoza (52nd), and Barcelona (92nd). Smart cities are revealed as one of Red.es’ development priorities in its financial report for the first half of 2025, with initiatives such as the Data Space for Smart Urban Infrastructures (EDINT) and the agreement with the Spanish Network of Smart Cities of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces to promote this model.
Zebra. En la imagen, Carlos de la Cuesta.”I have to give a lance to our public servants, because they do a lot with a little,” says Zebra Technologies’ de la Cuesta. “Obviously, there are mistakes and sometimes we have to backtrack, but things are being done quite well.”In the integration of new tools, despite Spain holding a leading position in areas such as 5G, “technology moves much faster than the government’s ability to react,” he says.”It’s not like a private company, which has a certain agility to make investments,” he explains. “Public administration is much slower. Budgets are different. Administrative procedures are extremely long. From the moment a project is first discussed until it is actually executed, many years pass.”In his experience, security requirements demanded of suppliers by the government are increasingly stringent, and in line with the minimum standards set by organizations such as the National Cryptologic Center.Accenture’s DomÃnguez agrees. “Spain has made significant progress in recent years in the protection of critical urban infrastructure, thanks to the regulatory push resulting from the transposition of the NIS Directive and the National Security Scheme (ENS), as well as growing institutional awareness.”According to DomÃnguez, Madrid, Barcelona, “‹”‹Valencia, and Malaga have “structured cyber protection initiatives that integrate OT security, network segmentation, real-time monitoring, and coordinated incident response. However, the level of protection remains uneven and, in many cases, reactive.”He identifies two main challenges municipal CISOs face: a lack of specialized resources at the municipal level and a dependence on technology providers “who do not always integrate cybersecurity from the design phase.”
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