Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

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CHAPTER 3
New and emerging threats of cyber crime and terrorism
Note that cars may not only be used for their mobility function. The battery may be 
used as temporary storage for locally produced power which can be used later to sell it 
at a much higher price to the power grid. Cyber criminals may try to disrupt such mech-
anisms in order to affect the cyber-physical grid behavior and energy market prices.
Another expected innovation stimulated by the authorities may be the activation 
of all car horns in a selected area. They may be an alternate to the hard to maintain, 
costly and in rural areas ineffective emergency siren system. Such functionality may 
be of interest to hackers to show their abilities (probably in the mid of the night).
Experiments with collaborative and fully automatic driving of cars and trucks 
take place in the USA and EU. Safety is an issue, but ICT security aspects seem to be 
of less concern despite many successful hacking attacks on cars in laboratory settings 
(
Rouf et al., 2010
). Moreover, the threat to the security of the transport system, e.g., 
due to malware affecting a specific car type or specific type of ECU, has not been 
addressed upfront. Once again, earlier identified lessons are not taken into account. 
Moreover, mechanics that perform the software upgrades to your car during mainte-
nance have not been trained in cyber securing the laptop they hook up to cars, another 
unconsciously insecure risk. A more detailed analysis of threats to ICT systems in 
and around cars can be found in 
Bijlsma et al. (2013)
.
Another innovation is that of the next generation digital red light/speed trap cam-
era. It will require only a power source. A wide range of wired and wireless con-
nectivity means it provides for remote access. As the camera can be programmed 
remotely to read number plates and decide upon the information that is stored and 
transmitted for a picture for issuing a fine, it will be an attractive functional box for 
hackers to create havoc, e.g., take a photo of each taxi independent of its speed dur-
ing the green phase.
 8.
Energy and drinking water sectors: Smart meters are rolled out now in a number of 
nations. They will form the first smart interface between the utility grids (such as 
power, gas, drinking water) and the local utility system within properties. Smart 
meters make it feasible for utility customers to have very flexible contracts 
based on greenness, time of day and day of the week. As prosumers they may 
sell locally generated power to the grid at the best time. Manipulation of smart 
meters, however, provides a business model to (cyber) criminals, as has already 
been shown in the USA by 
KrebsOnSecurity (2012)
. As smart meters often 
use mobile telecommunication technologies to communicate with neighboring 
concentration points and there will be many of those concentration points per 
local area, the investment in technology and therefore in cyber security needs to 
be cheap. On the other hand, equipment needs to function for years while one 
is not prepared for massive security upgrades in case of malware or other cyber 
security failures affect the smart meter function.
Some smart meters allow for a remote turn-off of the customer services. Cyber crimi-
nals or hacktivists may find a way to turn-off utility services at a large scale, for in-
stance to extort a utility company. Note that in many nations, it is legally not allowed 

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