From Rolling Stock to Rolling Datacentres
Modern cars host upward of 100 ECUs, multiple CAN buses, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 5G, and over-the-air update engines. When researchers at Yuga Labs disclosed a flaw in Kia’s owner-portal API in mid-2024, they could locate, unlock, and start millions of vehicles using nothing more than a license plate number. Around the same time, Synacktiv researchers demonstrated a zero-click RCE in Tesla’s tyre-pressure monitoring system; a single malformed packet could seize control of a critical ECU before the owner pressed the brake pedal. And it is not just the cars: a May 2024 CISA advisory showed how a default password in high-power EV chargers let attackers shut down stations or bypass payments.
Why Vehicles Are Different
Physical safety rides shotgun with cybersecurity; a fleet-wide DDoS could strand thousands of commuters, while a targeted hack could weaponise steering or braking. Attack surfaces include:
- Telematics APIs: poorly authenticated fleet portals and apps
- Diagnostic or infotainment USB ports: easy malware sideload
- Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) links: new for EVs, but often overlooked in threat models
- OTA update services: if compromised, they become a supply-chain attack vector
The Regulatory Squeeze
In July 2024, UN Regulation 155 (WP.29) became mandatory for all new vehicles sold in 56 member economies, the GCC included, forcing manufacturers to maintain a certified Cybersecurity Management System across the entire vehicle life-cycle. ISO/SAE 21434 provides the engineering blueprint to comply, pushing secure-by-design principles down to ECU firmware and supplier relationships.
Practical Mitigations for Fleet Owners and Individuals
For enterprises:
- Insist on ISO 21434 attestation and penetration-test results before onboarding a vehicle platform.
- Use fleet-wide intrusion-detection that taps CAN traffic for anomalies and geofences new firmware rollout.
- Protect the charging infrastructure like any critical OT system segment, patch, and monitor.
For private drivers:
- Enable in-app MFA; avoid social-login shortcuts for the car portal.
- Apply OTA updates promptly (they often include critical ECU patches).
- Never plug unknown USB devices into the infotainment system.
- Keep the car’s Wi-Fi hotspot disabled unless actively in use.
Biometric Systems: When Your Identity Can’t Be Re-Issued
Deepfake Reality Check
In November 2024, a BBC journalist cloned his voice with off-the-shelf AI tools, rang his UK bank, and bypassed its voice-ID line in under two minutes. Voice is not alone: academic work published in June 2025 shows experts and laypeople alike underestimate the speed at which generative-AI deepfakes are eroding confidence in face and fingerprint authentication. Simultaneously, researchers have demonstrated fingerprint theft using nothing more than the sound of a finger swiping a touchscreen, captured by the phone’s microphone.
Threat Types
| Threat | How It Works | Why It Matters |
| Replay / deepfake | Cloned voice or face fed to the sensor | Beats remote KYC, banking hotlines |
| Template theft | Database of prints or iris codes exfiltrated | Biometric data is immutable; a breach is forever |
| Adversarial ML | Tiny pixel perturbations fool the model | Unlocks spoof safeguards, evades CCTV |
Beyond personal loss, template breaches undermine public trust in e-government IDs and privileged-facility access. The gulf between “proof-of-concept” and “in-the-wild” is shrinking fast.
Building Trust Back In
- Liveness checking: challenge-response blinking, micro-head-movement depth sensing, or randomised acoustic prompts for voice.
- Template protection: encrypt and store templates in hardware enclaves; never transmit raw biometrics off-device.
- Multifactor everything: biometrics should replace only the password you forget, not the second factor you still need.
- Regulatory mapping: track compliance with emerging biometric-data clauses under the EU AI Act and the UAE’s draft Data Protection Regulation.
Overlooked Edges: Energy Storage, Micromobility & Beyond
- Home battery systems ship with web dashboards that default to root:changeme; a compromise can disable solar generation or overload a local grid segment.
- Public e-scooters and e-bikes expose BLE diagnostics; attackers have bricked entire city fleets or used location APIs to stalk riders.
- Drones and delivery bots rely on unauthenticated MQTT topics; hijacks can enable espionage or physical harm.
- Wearable medical devices (continuous glucose monitors, pulse-ox bracelets) transmit PII over plain BLE; data ransom is on the rise.
Each niche adds one more wrinkle to your enterprise asset inventory and risk register. Yet the mitigation mantras remain the same: segmentation, updates, authentication, logging.
A Blueprint for Resilience: Seven Security Pillars
- Secure by Design
Embed threat modelling and fuzz testing into the product SDLC; refuse to treat security as a post-launch patch.
- Identity & Least Privilege
Certificates for devices, MFA for users, unique keys per appliance and per vehicle.
- Network Segmentation
VLANs for IoT, zero-trust micro-segmentation for critical OT like chargers and batteries.
- Continuous Monitoring
Baseline normal behaviour; detect anomalies in outbound traffic volume or CAN message entropy.
- Lifecycle & EoL Management
Document support horizons; publish SBOMs and decommission instructions.
- Incident Response Integration
Your SOC playbooks must include unconventional devices, know how to isolate a smart oven, or revoke a stolen biometric template.
- Governance & Compliance
Track new mandates (EU CRA, UN R155, ISO 21434, Cyber Trust Mark) and map them to internal policy.
Smart Buildings and Infrastructure: The Risks Hiding in the Walls
The Smart Building Illusion
From AI-powered HVAC systems to intelligent elevators and badge-access control panels, modern buildings are more connected than ever. These Building Management Systems (BMS) integrate lighting, security, energy, and environmental controls under centralized dashboards, often remotely accessible via the internet or vendor portals.
And that’s exactly the problem.
In 2023, a security firm discovered thousands of exposed BMS dashboards indexed by Shodan, many of them controlling sensitive infrastructure: airports, corporate campuses, and government buildings. The systems, built for convenience, often ran outdated protocols like BACnet or Modbus with minimal or no authentication. Access didn’t just mean turning off the lights; it meant unlocking doors, killing power to mission-critical systems, or hijacking entire office floors.
Documented Failures
- A luxury hotel in Austria was hit by ransomware that disabled its smart keycard system, locking guests out of their rooms until a ransom was paid.
- In North America, researchers demonstrated remote control over HVAC systems at multiple hospitals, threatening temperature-sensitive medicine storage.
Protection Blueprint
- Air-gap or firewall BMS from the general IT network; use dedicated VLANs.
- Demand vendor hardening guides and restrict administrative interfaces to known IPs.
- Enable logging and anomaly detection for building controls, just as you would for user endpoints.
Healthcare and the Body as an Attack Surface
Implants and Wearables
Modern healthcare relies on a mix of cloud-integrated diagnostics, smart implants, and wearable sensors. While they increase the quality of care, they also introduce cyber-physical risk.
Examples include:
- Insulin pumps with wireless update features
- Pacemakers that can be pinged and reconfigured via Bluetooth
- Hospital infusion pumps connected to centralized control systems
In 2017, the FDA issued a recall for 465,000 pacemakers due to remote exploitation risks, underscoring how deeply cybersecurity and physical well-being are now intertwined.
Key Risks
- Insecure protocols (e.g., BLE with no encryption or authentication)
- Lack of update mechanisms or dependency on on-site technician patching
- Medical data exfiltration from third-party health apps and connected platforms
Patient-Centered Safeguards
- Choose wearables and implants that explicitly support over-the-air (OTA) patching, and verify the vendor’s update policy.
- Treat personal health telemetry like sensitive data: store locally when possible, limit cloud syncing, and restrict app permissions.
- For hospitals, apply zero-trust principles even within clinical networks; segment medical devices as you would SCADA gear.
Industrial IoT and Supply Chain Risks
Industrial Revolution 4.0 = Attack Surface 4.0
In manufacturing, logistics, and utilities, digital transformation is creating a fully automated, sensor-rich environment. These systems, Industrial IoT (IIoT), operate cranes, sort cargo, monitor temperatures, and regulate power flows.
But these industrial systems are now frequent targets:
- In 2021, Colonial Pipeline was taken offline for days due to a VPN password reuse attack, originating not from core OT but the supporting digital ecosystem.
- In 2023, Iranian steel plants were reportedly shut down by attackers exploiting insecure factory monitoring systems.
Common Weaknesses
- Legacy protocols like DNP3 or Modbus that lack encryption
- External remote access via TeamViewer or insecure VPNs
- Lack of firmware integrity checks on field devices and PLCs
How to Harden IIoT Systems
- Inventory every sensor and actuator: Know what’s connected, who manages it, and how it communicates.
- Require digital signing and hash validation for all firmware and configuration updates.
- Deploy OT-specific intrusion detection (e.g., Nozomi or Dragos) that can understand physical process anomalies, not just packet patterns.
Ethical Dilemmas: Consent, Surveillance, and Control
Informed Consent in a Connected World
When a smart speaker listens to commands or a fridge tracks your grocery habits, who owns the data? Even more pressing is who decides what security features get implemented? These questions move from technical to ethical.
Examples of concern:
- Biometric databases used for both access control and workplace surveillance
- City-wide traffic sensors that double as citizen tracking tools
- Smart classroom technologies that capture audio and gaze metrics
The “Ethical Patch”
Many systems today don’t just need software updates, they need ethical updates. This means implementing:
- Transparent opt-in frameworks for any kind of behavioral or location tracking
- Data minimization principles: collect only what is strictly required
- Deletion and exit options: ensure users can revoke data rights and device access
Looking Forward: Resilience in the Age of Ambient Computing
We are entering an era of ambient computing, where devices fade into the background, always sensing, always acting. This shift means cybersecurity must now be:
- Contextual: tailored to environments (hospital vs home vs battlefield)
- Ubiquitous: built into sensors, not just servers
- Human-first: respecting dignity, autonomy, and privacy from the moment a device boots
The New Cyber-Hygiene
Smart appliances, connected vehicles, and biometric locks are not fringe luxuries; they are the new default fabric of personal and corporate life. Treating them as “mini-computers first, gadgets second” is the mental shift that unlocks effective defence. By demanding transparency from vendors, segmenting networks, enforcing updates, and planning for the irreversible nature of biometric leaks, we can reap the full benefits of a connected world without surrendering safety or privacy. Security is no longer about hardening a single perimeter; it’s about raising the baseline everywhere the microprocessor shows up, whether that is under your kitchen counter, in your garage, or embedded in your fingertip.