Fintech professional’s tech predictions: 2 - Smart meter breaches

This is the second prediction from one of my contacts in the financial services IT sector. The previous blog post in this series predicted that tech firms will soon need government certificates if producing news content, to fight against fake news.

Read part 1 here.

Here is prediction 2 from the banking IT insider:

2 – Smart Meter breaches

“Utilities smart meter infrastructure will be breached to interfere with billing data or disrupt supplies. This may take the form of minor (hard to detect) or major (disruptive) consumption adjustments in favour of the energy companies or consumers and could include remote supply disconnection where smart meters support this function. Interference may come from hackers, insiders, the infrastructure supply chain, activists, terrorists or other governments wishing to cause disruption. This may not use the internet, but it does use wireless communication and presents a potentially low cost and effective means of attack or retaliation between countries with a large number of smart meter users.”

This series of blog posts came about following a conversation with one of my contacts. He had lots of predictions for tech over the next few years and I thought I should share them and get some comments from the wider public.

He told me that a few of the predictions might be a statements of the obvious to those more closely involved, so sent them in context of trends emerging over the next 1 to 5 years. “I think we are approaching the point when an increasing number of people will realise how risky the connected world can be and start to minimise or withdraw from it where possible. This would have a profound impact on the current tech trajectory that most people believe in. Security, privacy and tackling cybercrime will continue to gain momentum as the most critical issues in tech.”

Please post your own thoughts in the comments section. I would also be interested in other predictions.