Recent headlines were made when two researchers (thankfully, friendly and with the driver's consent) hacked into a Washington Post reporter's Jeep Cherokee and took control of it from miles away, while he was driving at 70 miles per hour on a busy interstate highway in St. Louis. From the comfort of their living room, the hackers were able to take over control of not just the A/C, the radio, and the windshield wiper/washer systems, but cut power to the engine and later (under safer conditions) showed they could slam on or disable the brakes, at will. Thankfully, no one lost their life in this case, but it is pretty scary to imagine these tools in the hands of violent criminals or terrorists … or for that matter, any rebellious or troubled geek with a grudge.

It's not just cars at risk. We've already seen hackers taking control of everything from airplanes to baby monitors (and everything else in a "smart home") to steel mills, traffic lights/traffic control systems, nuclear power plants. So far, we haven't seen a 9/11 scale IoT hack that really gets the nation's or world's attention, but the risk is clear and present.

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