(and potentially jeopardize the security of the networks they are connected to) until they are
decommissioned.
Information collected about citizens for the purposes of targeted advertising is an ongo-
ing issue of concern. With IoT devices in the mix, we are bound to have cases in which data
collected from IoT sensors within our homes will be leveraged for marketing, contributing to
intrusive privacy violations. Health information, traditionally trapped within instruments and
records in hospitals, is also now being collected by consumer devices that may be vulnerable
to tampering. Such data may be utilized for research and stored in multiple locations in the
cloud, thus increasing the probability of exposure.
Areas around the world are starting to leverage the concept of the smart city to serve their
citizens efficiently. The combination of industrial- and consumer-grade IoT devices that
empower these cities will introduce risk and open citizens up to privacy and security attacks
that were previously limited to online spaces.
With respect to travelling to Mars and making our machines more intelligent, human-
kind faces great potential for triumph as well as great peril from threat agents—including
superintelligent machines. As we make progress in the fields of space travel, interspace com-
munication, and machine intelligence, we are going have to put a lot of thought into how to
secure these platforms early on, because vulnerabilities in these areas could lead to the loss of
human lives and curtail our ability to colonize other planets.
The ultimate goal of the cybersecurity profession is to enable connected technology as
securely and swiftly as possible, and this enablement must begin with informed predictions of
upcoming scenarios of attacks such as the ones discussed in this chapter.
CONCLUSION 249