Threats and vulnerabilities

In this chapter, we present a review of threats and vulnerabilities that could afflict society and individuals in the AmI world in the context of the key policy issues of privacy, identity, trust, security and digital divide. We define a threat as the potential for one or more unwanted consequences caused by a circumstance, capability, action or event that could be harmful to a system or person. Threats can be caused naturally, accidentally or intentionally. In essence, a threat is a ubiquitous phenomenon. A vulnerability is a flaw or weakness in a system’s design, its implementation, operation or management that could be exploited to violate the system and, consequently, cause a threat. Vulnerabilities may have different dimensions: technical, functional or behavioural.1