Reuters is reporting that the U.S. Justice Department has formed a threat analysis team to study potential national security challenges posed by self-driving cars, medical devices and other Internet-connected tools. The new group’s goal is to secure the so-called “internet of things” from exploitation by “terrorist threats” and by others who might try to hack devices to cause loss of life or achieve political or economic gain, according to Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, head of the Justice Department’s national security division. The impetus for the team, which has been informally active for about six months, was an understanding that the internet is vulnerable to cyber attacks partly because it was not designed with security in mind, Carlin told Reuters, after announcing the group on Thursday at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance conference in Washington. Source: Justice Dept. group studying national security threats of internet-linked devices