Cyber and physical threats to the internet of everything

After over 40 years of the Internet faithfully serving the needs of the Earth’s human population for information, communication, and entertainment, we have now entered the era of the IoT. Of course, when we refer to the Internet, we also mean the Web and therefore the Web of Things (WoT), where distributed applications benefitting from networking through the Internet are no longer a privilege of humans. Things can also take full advantage of the capabilities, simplicity, and potential of Web technologies and protocols. Following current developments in this field, it is not difficult to see the inevitability of the convergence of the two worlds, of humans and of things, each using the Internet as a primary means of communication. Possibly the most appropriate term to describe this evolution has been proposed by Cisco: the Internet of Everything (IoE), which "brings together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before." In the IoE era, machines are equal to humans as Internet users. In an ecosystem in which everything is connected, and where physical and cyber converge and collaborate, the threats of the two worlds not only coexist, but also converge, creating a still largely unknown environment, in which an attack in cyberspace can propagate and have an adverse effect in physical space and vice versa. So how can we be prepared for and confront this new unknown? How can we study and learn from the ways this has been dealt with in the past? First, it is important to simplify the problem by attempting to identify the components of IoE and the threats and effects an attack can have in each one

Evaluating the use of CCTV surveillance systems for crime control and prevention : selected case studies from Johannesburg and Tshwane, Gauteng

This research evaluates crime prevention effects/impact of open-street closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance systems as installed in the selected areas (research sites) of the cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane in the Gauteng Province of South Africa on crimes occurring in these surveilled areas. Currently, CCTV surveillance systems are a common sight in many of the urban areas of South Africa.The principal aim of this study was to explore the evaluation of CCTV for crime prevention, reduction and control. The results show that, despite a lack of empirical evidence as to the value of CCTV surveillance systems in preventing or reducing crime, there is strong public support for these systems and that the foundation for much of this support lies in the perceptions/feelings of members of the public of greater safety generated in areas with CCTV coverage. The method of sampling used was a purposive non-probability sampling approach. Participants were selected for interviews based on their knowledge and experience of CCTV systems. The results show that, despite this lack of empirical evidence, CCTV appears to be a viable option for crime prevention and control when integrated with evidence-based strategies rather than as a stand-alone tactic in order to achieve crime control benefits.Criminology and Security ScienceM. Tech. (Security Management

Project BeARCAT : Baselining, Automation and Response for CAV Testbed Cyber Security : Connected Vehicle & Infrastructure Security Assessment

Connected, software-based systems are a driver in advancing the technology of transportation systems. Advanced automated and autonomous vehicles, together with electrification, will help reduce congestion, accidents and emissions. Meanwhile, vehicle manufacturers see advanced technology as enhancing their products in a competitive market. However, as many decades of using home and enterprise computer systems have shown, connectivity allows a system to become a target for criminal intentions. Cyber-based threats to any system are a problem; in transportation, there is the added safety implication of dealing with moving vehicles and the passengers within

A survey on vehicular communication for cooperative truck platooning application

Platooning is an application where a group of vehicles move one after each other in close proximity, acting jointly as a single physical system. The scope of platooning is to improve safety, reduce fuel consumption, and increase road use efficiency. Even if conceived several decades ago as a concept, based on the new progress in automation and vehicular networking platooning has attracted particular attention in the latest years and is expected to become of common implementation in the next future, at least for trucks.The platoon system is the result of a combination of multiple disciplines, from transportation, to automation, to electronics, to telecommunications. In this survey, we consider the platooning, and more specifically the platooning of trucks, from the point of view of wireless communications. Wireless communications are indeed a key element, since they allow the information to propagate within the convoy with an almost negligible delay and really making all vehicles acting as one. Scope of this paper is to present a comprehensive survey on connected vehicles for the platooning application, starting with an overview of the projects that are driving the development of this technology, followed by a brief overview of the current and upcoming vehicular networking architecture and standards, by a review of the main open issues related to wireless communications applied to platooning, and a discussion of security threats and privacy concerns. The survey will conclude with a discussion of the main areas that we consider still open and that can drive future research directions.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Cyber-Physical Threat Intelligence for Critical Infrastructures Security

Modern critical infrastructures comprise of many interconnected cyber and physical assets, and as such are large scale cyber-physical systems. Hence, the conventional approach of securing these infrastructures by addressing cyber security and physical security separately is no longer effective. Rather more integrated approaches that address the security of cyber and physical assets at the same time are required. This book presents integrated (i.e. cyber and physical) security approaches and technologies for the critical infrastructures that underpin our societies. Specifically, it introduces advanced techniques for threat detection, risk assessment and security information sharing, based on leading edge technologies like machine learning, security knowledge modelling, IoT security and distributed ledger infrastructures. Likewise, it presets how established security technologies like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), pen-testing, vulnerability assessment and security data analytics can be used in the context of integrated Critical Infrastructure Protection. The novel methods and techniques of the book are exemplified in case studies involving critical infrastructures in four industrial sectors, namely finance, healthcare, energy and communications. The peculiarities of critical infrastructure protection in each one of these sectors is discussed and addressed based on sector-specific solutions. The advent of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is expected to increase the cyber-physical nature of critical infrastructures as well as their interconnection in the scope of sectorial and cross-sector value chains. Therefore, the demand for solutions that foster the interplay between cyber and physical security, and enable Cyber-Physical Threat Intelligence is likely to explode. In this book, we have shed light on the structure of such integrated security systems, as well as on the technologies that will underpin their operation. We hope that Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection stakeholders will find the book useful when planning their future security strategies

Smart campuses : extensive review of the last decade of research and current challenges

Novel intelligent systems to assist energy transition and improve sustainability can be deployed at different scales, ranging from a house to an entire region. University campuses are an interesting intermediate size (big enough to matter and small enough to be tractable) for research, development, test and training on the integration of smartness at all levels, which has led to the emergence of the concept of “smart campus” over the last few years. This review article proposes an extensive analysis of the scientific literature on smart campuses from the last decade (2010-2020). The 182 selected publications are distributed into seven categories of smartness: smart building, smart environment, smart mobility, smart living, smart people, smart governance and smart data. The main open questions and challenges regarding smart campuses are presented at the end of the review and deal with sustainability and energy transition, acceptability and ethics, learning models, open data policies and interoperability. The present work was carried out within the framework of the Energy Network of the Regional Leaders Summit (RLS-Energy) as part of its multilateral research efforts on smart region

Advances in Public Transport Platform for the Development of Sustainability Cities

Modern societies demand high and varied mobility, which in turn requires a complex transport system adapted to social needs that guarantees the movement of people and goods in an economically efficient and safe way, but all are subject to a new environmental rationality and the new logic of the paradigm of sustainability. From this perspective, an efficient and flexible transport system that provides intelligent and sustainable mobility patterns is essential to our economy and our quality of life. The current transport system poses growing and significant challenges for the environment, human health, and sustainability, while current mobility schemes have focused much more on the private vehicle that has conditioned both the lifestyles of citizens and cities, as well as urban and territorial sustainability. Transport has a very considerable weight in the framework of sustainable development due to environmental pressures, associated social and economic effects, and interrelations with other sectors. The continuous growth that this sector has experienced over the last few years and its foreseeable increase, even considering the change in trends due to the current situation of generalized crisis, make the challenge of sustainable transport a strategic priority at local, national, European, and global levels. This Special Issue will pay attention to all those research approaches focused on the relationship between evolution in the area of transport with a high incidence in the environment from the perspective of efficiency

The effects of self-driving vehicles on the insurance industry

In a not too distant future, autonomous vehicles might be part of our life, offering us a new type of mobility with promising benefits. Nevertheless, they are also expected to disrupt our environment in all kind of manners and potentially threaten sectors related to transports and mobility. The main objective of this thesis was to understand and find out the different effects that those could have on the Swiss auto-insurance industry. Indeed, so far, many opinions related to the problematic were expressed, however very few were directly considering the Swiss environment with its different infrastructures, stakeholders and mentalities. Therefore, we wanted to understand how those vehicles still in development, would impact the Swiss insurance organisations, their internal activities and their products. We wanted to understand the general dynamism going behind their development and try to point out how the different stages of their evolutions would impact the operations of insurance companies. This project revealed that because of the none-existence of adapted regulations, current self-driving systems were in fact considered as driving assistances to comply with the existing regulations as well as the Vienna Convention. As a consequence, the drivers are similarly liable and still required to subscribe a civil liability insurance policy. Findings were also reflecting the idea that until performances reach a certain level of reliability, regulations would not evolve and neither insurance products. It would only be at the time the legal framework is clearly established that insurance institutions would react. Depending on those evolutions, a new era of auto insurance services could arise. Indeed, insurance organisations might be evolving in a different environment, where mobility on demand would become prospering and corporations obliged to ensure their own vehicles, while the overall quantity of those might be significantly reduced. As a result, insurance institutions might have to deal with a different clientele, made of large corporations with strong bargaining power and a decreased quantity of individuals. Besides, autonomous vehicles will also implicate an evolution of the risks involved. Indeed, the risks related to driving could become irrelevant, while the ones emerging from cyber aspects could become particularly important. In response to those different vehicles, those emerging risks and those different customers, insurance companies might have to reassess their know-how, the way they operate and potentially expand their areas of expertise, while developing new sets of skills allowing them to design innovative products meeting the needs of a different environment

Enabling NATO’s Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 1)

In 2014 NATO’s Center of Excellence-Defence Against Terrorism (COE-DAT) launched the inaugural course on “Critical Infrastructure Protection Against Terrorist Attacks.” As this course garnered increased attendance and interest, the core lecturer team felt the need to update the course in critical infrastructure (CI) taking into account the shift from an emphasis on “protection” of CI assets to “security and resiliency.” What was lacking in the fields of academe, emergency management, and the industry practitioner community was a handbook that leveraged the collective subject matter expertise of the core lecturer team, a handbook that could serve to educate government leaders, state and private-sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, academicians, and policymakers in NATO and partner countries. Enabling NATO’s Collective Defense: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency is the culmination of such an effort, the first major collaborative research project under a Memorandum of Understanding between the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), and NATO COE-DAT. The research project began in October 2020 with a series of four workshops hosted by SSI. The draft chapters for the book were completed in late January 2022. Little did the research team envision the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February this year. The Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, successive missile attacks against Ukraine’s electric generation and distribution facilities, rail transport, and cyberattacks against almost every sector of the country’s critical infrastructure have been on world display. Russian use of its gas supplies as a means of economic warfare against Europe—designed to undermine NATO unity and support for Ukraine—is another timely example of why adversaries, nation-states, and terrorists alike target critical infrastructure. Hence, the need for public-private sector partnerships to secure that infrastructure and build the resiliency to sustain it when attacked. Ukraine also highlights the need for NATO allies to understand where vulnerabilities exist in host nation infrastructure that will undermine collective defense and give more urgency to redressing and mitigating those fissures.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1951/thumbnail.jp

The Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Urban Land Use Patterns

Autonomous vehicles are coming. The only questions are how quickly they will arrive, how we will manage the years when they share the road with conventional vehicles, and how the legal system will address the issues they raise. This Article examines the impact the autonomous vehicle revolution will have on urban land use patterns. Autonomous vehicles will transform the use of land and the law governing that valuable land. Automobiles will drop passengers off and then drive themselves to remote parking areas, reducing the need for downtown parking. These vehicles will create the need for substantial changes in roadway design. Driverless cars are more likely to be shared, and fleets may supplant individual ownership. At the same time, people may be willing to endure longer commutes, working while their car transports them. These dramatic changes will require corresponding adaptations in real estate and land use law. Zoning laws, building codes, and homeowners\u27association rules will have to be updated to reflect shifting needs for parking. Longer commutes may create a need for stricter environmental controls. Moreover, jurisdictions will have to address these changes while operating under considerable uncertainty, as we all wait to see which technologies catch on, which fall by the wayside, and how quickly this revolution arrives. This Article examines the legal changes that are likely to be needed in the near future. It concludes by recommending that government bodies engage in scenario planning so they can act under conditions of ambiguity while reducing the risk of poor decisions.