Keywords

1 Introduction

The concept of smart cities, originating from the field of media, refers to using a variety of new technologies or innovative concepts to effectively connect and integrate various systems and services through reasonable resource allocation in cities, so as to optimize urban management and improve life quality of residents [1,2,3]. Smart cities fully apply all kinds of new technologies (such as Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, virtual reality, etc.) into all walks of life in cities [4,5,6]. By establishing the interconnection in broadband ubiquitous networks, integrating application of intelligent technologies and sharing resources widely, smart cities obtain comprehensive and thorough perception abilities to realize fine and dynamic management of cities and effective improvement of life of residents [7,8,9,10].

Smart cities have been valued by countries all over the world since they came into being, which provide more convenience for people’s life while improving the intelligent level of cities [11,12,13]. However, smart cities are highly dependent on new technologies including cloud computing and IoT [14,15,16], which brings a hidden danger of spreading the information risk while applying technologies and poses multi-facetted impacts on information security in cities [17,18,19,20]. How to reasonably allocate the current resources in cities to avoid the information security risk as far as possible and obtain the maximum benefits has become a practical problem that smart cities have to be faced in their healthy development [21,22,23,24,25].

2 Influencing Factors Index System

Comprehensive analysis on factors influencing resource allocation to information security and establishment of the corresponding index system are the bases for reducing the information security risk in smart cities in the context of big data. From the perspective of information security, the first-level indexes in the index system can be summarized into four aspects, namely resources, threat sources, vulnerability and safety measures by combining with the current situations of smart cities..

2.1 Information Resources

There are many kinds of information resources, but it is evident that the higher the value of resources, the greater the risk may be faced in the actual situations. In accordance with relevant definitions of smart cities and information resources, the influencing factors of resources are sub-classified into three second-level indexes: management personnel, infrastructure and economic investment, that is, manpower, material resources and financial resources. By further analysing the information security risk based on these indexes, the third-level indexes are obtained and the results are shown in Fig. 1.

2.2 Threat Sources

Threat is an objective factor that probably causes the potential risk for information security in smart cities. The influencing factors of a threat source are sub-classified into two second-level indexes, namely technological and management threats. By further analysing the information security risk based on the indexes, the third-level indexes are obtained and the results are illustrated in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1.
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Index system of factors influencing information security in smart cities based on resource value

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Fig. 2.
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Factors influencing information security in smart cities in the confirmation of the threat sources

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2.3 Vulnerability

Vulnerability is considered mainly because in the context of big data, the defects of the information system in smart cities are threatened and taken advantages of, which renders the system possibly under risk of attack. The influencing factors of vulnerability are sub-classified into two second-level indexes: vulnerability in technology and management. The third-level indexes are obtained by analysing the information security risk based on the above factors, and the results are demonstrated in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.
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Factors influencing information security in smart cities in the identification of vulnerability

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2.4 Safety Measures

Safety measures are a barrier to protect information security in smart cities, which can effectively reduce risks of security accidents and vulnerabilities, and provide technical supports and management mechanisms for some re-sources. The influencing factors of safety measures are sub-classified into two second-level indexes: preventive measures and protective measures, on which basis the information security risk is further analyzed to obtain the three-level indexes. The results are shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.
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Factors influencing information security in smart cities based on safety measures

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3 Resource Allocation Framework to Information Security

With the constant development and progress in new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, IoT, cloud computing and virtual reality, the development and construction of smart cities has been realized, but there are also great threats and challenges in information security. To effectively respond to these threats and challenges, by fully understanding the factors influencing resource allocation to information security, this study established a reasonable and effective theoretical framework of resource allocation to information security based on the current popular evolutionary game theory. The framework can play its due role in the protection of information security. By analysing the index system of influencing factors in the above section, it can be seen that these common links including software and hardware, data, network, application, external environment and management are involved in all influencing factors in smart cities. In a city, how to plan the limited resources and avoid the restrictions of the above factors, so as to play the maximum efficiency of all resources and well protect the information security is one of the problems that need to be considered. For a city that has communication with the outside world, all internal resources therein are regarded as a whole, in which some external resources can complement, be replaced, and weakly correlated with internal resources. How to allocate the resources reasonably to improve the safeguard effects on information security is also an issue to be considered. In conclusion, the resource allocation to information security in a smart city is to analyse how to allocate internal and external resources of the city. According to the evolutionary game theory, the theoretical framework of resource allocation to information security was obtained, as displayed in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5.
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Theoretical framework of resource allocation to information security

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4 Conclusions

On the basis of discussing relevant concepts and technical theories, the research established the index system of factors influencing resource allocation to information security from aspects including resources, threat sources, vulnerability, and safety measures. The factors and mechanisms that influence information security were analysed and the basic theoretical framework of resource allocation to information security was built based on evolutionary game. The resource allocation to information security is divided into internal and external resource allocation in cities, and the latter can be sub-divided into complementary, alternative, and weakly correlated external resource allocation. Moreover, subject relationships under various circumstances were analysed under the framework.