Managing technological security of smart environment monitoring systems: study of a coastal province in Vietnam

With the machinery and systemic interconnections of the current 'Industry 4.0' world that we live in today, water critical infrastructures (CI) are crucial, interconnected with major urban entities such as medical and natural ecosystems. Environment monitoring technology (EMT), bounded to water CIs, providing the necessary real-time information for control and operation of urban water facilities, can become potential targets for physical or online attacks, disruption or destruction, imposing discomforts, outages and damages to affected water CI systems and related stakeholders, affecting the nontraditional security of affected region/cities. This is increasingly crucial as many cities in Vietnam are planning to implement digital transformation to become smart cities, creating multitudes of digital, internet connections, and numerous technological risks. In summary, this article attempts to analyse and draw conclusions about various aspects of technological security of environment monitoring systems (EMSs) of Quang Ninh, Vietnam and propose solutions that the city can apply to mitigate such nontraditional threats and prevent probable future incidents that can cause serious disruptions to such critical structures.