Cyber Security Of Autonomous Vehicles: The Implications For City Planning

The rise of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has proclaimed positive consequences for urban quality, including reductions in accidents and deaths. As automobiles become digitalized, questions over cyber or electronic threats require further contextualization in urban security scholarship. Focusing on literature on radiofrequency interference of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-aided and -dependent systems, the aim of this article is to consider threats to vehicle safety from electronic interference and the implications for users, city planners, asset managers, and vehicle manufacturers. While well-known issues such as privacy aversion, tax avoidance, and fraud are documented, it expands on other less-well-known threats to autonomous vehicles from electronic interference, including: (1) spoofing-enabled hijacking; (2) corporate shaming; (3) denial of service; (4) resistance to mandatory speed restrictions; (5) spoofing-enabled physical encroachments and; (6) targeted attacks against individuals. Upon establishing present threats to GNSS-dependent systems in AVs, it theorizes that the (hostile) architectures of mandatory speed and access restrictions in cities may invite new motives to target GNSS-systems.