An Infrastructure Security Perspective

Executive Summary

The United States has rapidly deployed a nationwide network of Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) cameras capable of tracking vehicle movements across the country. While intended for law enforcement purposes, this infrastructure exhibits fundamental security architecture flaws that create strategic vulnerabilities exploitable by foreign adversaries. This analysis examines the technical architecture, documented security failures, and potential threat scenarios from a purely infrastructure security perspective.

The Current ALPR Landscape

Scale and Scope

The growth of ALPR infrastructure in the United States has been extraordinary. Flock Safety, one of the primary vendors, now operates in over 5,000 communities across 49 states and performs over 20 billion vehicle scans per month. The company's network of cameras uses image recognition and machine learning to capture not just license plates, but also vehicle characteristics including make, model, color, and distinguishing features like bumper stickers, dents, and temporary plates.

Motorola Solutions, through its acquisition of Vigilant Solutions, controls another of the largest ALPR networks in the country. Their systems pull data from police cruisers, fixed cameras, toll plazas, commercial parking systems, and private contributors.

These systems don't merely record—they aggregate. Data flows into centralized, searchable databases that enable historical pattern-of-life analysis. A single query can reveal travel patterns stretching back months.

Data Integration

The surveillance capability extends beyond simple plate recognition. Systems now integrate:

Thomson Reuters maintains data agreements providing identity and analytics platforms that map vehicle detections to people, addresses, and associated records. The result is a comprehensive tracking capability that previously would have required dedicated intelligence teams and specialized facilities.

Architectural Security Analysis

Centralized Aggregation with Distributed Collection

The fundamental architecture of these systems creates inherent vulnerabilities. Data is collected by thousands of distributed endpoints—local police departments, HOAs, businesses, private property owners—but aggregated into centralized cloud databases operated by commercial vendors.

This creates what security professionals call a "target-rich environment with a single point of failure." Compromise of the central aggregation infrastructure provides access to data collected across the entire network.

Access Control Weaknesses

Current access controls are policy-based rather than technically enforced. When officers access systems like Flock's database, the primary guardrail is a text field where they must type a "reason" for the search. Analysis of audit logs has revealed searches tagged with terms like "immigration," "protest," and similar entries that suggest mission creep beyond original intended purposes.

The system operates on distributed trust assumptions—thousands of local agencies have access credentials, and searches of nationwide data require no additional authorization beyond local department access. A compromise of any participating agency's credentials provides lateral movement to the entire national network.

Documented Vulnerabilities

The security track record of ALPR infrastructure raises significant concerns:

2015: Researchers found over 100 ALPR cameras across Louisiana, California, and Florida that could be accessed and controlled directly from the internet. Many used default passwords documented in manufacturer support guides.

2019: A vendor providing ALPR technology for border patrol checkpoints was breached. Hackers gained access to 105,000 license plate images and 184,000 images of travelers, which were subsequently offered for sale on the dark web.

2024: CISA issued an advisory documenting multiple vulnerabilities in Vigilant license plate readers made by Motorola Solutions. The security flaws, some classified as high-severity, could allow attackers to bypass authentication, access sensitive information, deploy backdoors, and take control of systems.

2025: Security researchers discovered over 150 misconfigured Motorola ALPR cameras streaming live video feeds and data to the open internet without requiring authentication. Many devices were still using default manufacturer passwords.

The DeFlock community, which maps exposed ALPRs, has identified approximately 170 unencrypted cameras accessible to anyone with the correct URL. One researcher built a script that decodes the data, adds timestamps, and exports it to a spreadsheet to track specific vehicles' movements.

The Foreign Adversary Threat Model

China's Demonstrated Capabilities

Chinese state-sponsored cyber operations have demonstrated both the capability and intent to compromise U.S. infrastructure at scale.

Volt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group, has been documented gaining persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure including water treatment plants, electrical grids, and transportation systems. U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that China is "pre-positioning" within these networks for potential future disruption.

Salt Typhoon executed what Senator Mark Warner called "the worst telecom hack in our nation's history." The operation compromised at least nine U.S. telecommunications providers including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and others. Hackers accessed metadata on over a million users, obtained actual audio recordings of calls from high-profile individuals, and—critically—compromised the lawful intercept systems used for court-authorized wiretapping.

The Salt Typhoon intrusion demonstrates several relevant capabilities:

Investigators found that Salt Typhoon exploited basic security failures: legacy equipment not updated in years, router vulnerabilities with patches available for seven years that were never applied, and credentials obtained through weak passwords. These same weaknesses exist throughout ALPR infrastructure.

Scope of Chinese Operations: Chinese cyber espionage operations surged by 150% overall in 2024, with attacks against financial, media, manufacturing, and industrial sectors rising up to 300%. The Chinese government has been documented integrating cyber operations into coordinated wartime planning, with the establishment of dedicated Information Support Force and Cyberspace Force units under the Central Military Commission.

Russia's Infrastructure Targeting

Russia has demonstrated willingness to conduct disruptive attacks against infrastructure during conflicts. Russian cyber forces have attacked Ukrainian critical infrastructure throughout the ongoing invasion, and Russia has been implicated in attacks on U.S. election systems, energy grids, water systems, and other critical sectors.

Russian operations integrate cyber capabilities with information warfare and traditional military operations. The integration of cyber operations into Russia's political warfare framework complicates attribution and response.

Iran's Capabilities

Iran has actively targeted U.S. infrastructure, including documented attacks on water and wastewater systems. Iranian cyber actors have compromised critical infrastructure networks through brute force and credential access attacks. The National Security Agency has warned network defenders of malicious activity enabling persistent access to sensitive systems.

North Korea's Financial Motivations

While North Korea's cyber operations focus primarily on financial theft to circumvent sanctions, the DPRK has demonstrated sophisticated capabilities including the Lazarus Group's high-profile operations. North Korea's placement of IT workers in U.S. companies through fraud schemes demonstrates willingness to pursue long-term access for strategic purposes.

Attack Scenarios

Scenario 1: Direct Infrastructure Compromise

An adversary targets the cloud infrastructure of a major ALPR vendor through:

Result: Access to billions of historical vehicle detections across the United States, real-time alerting capabilities, and the ability to track any registered vehicle in the country.

Scenario 2: Credential Harvesting from Distributed Endpoints

Targeting the weakest links in the distributed trust model:

Result: Lateral access to nationwide data through any single compromised credential. A small department's login provides the same data access as a major metropolitan agency.

Scenario 3: Hardware Supply Chain

ALPR cameras are IoT devices deployed across the country with varying levels of supply chain security:

Result: Persistent access to raw data streams, ability to manipulate data, and potential for physical surveillance through camera feeds (as Flock has announced video capability).

Scenario 4: Parallel Infrastructure Deployment

Foreign adversaries deploy their own collection infrastructure:

Result: Independent tracking capability not dependent on compromising U.S. systems, supplementing intelligence collection.

Intelligence Value to Adversaries

Access to comprehensive vehicle tracking data would provide foreign intelligence services with:

Counterintelligence Goldmine

Targeting for Operations

Blackmail and Influence

Pre-Conflict Preparation

The value multiplies when combined with other compromised systems. Salt Typhoon's access to telecommunications metadata, combined with ALPR location data, provides comprehensive pattern-of-life intelligence on targets across the country.

Comparative Security Standards

The security posture of ALPR infrastructure compares unfavorably to other systems handling sensitive data:

What ALPR Systems Lack

Classification Controls: Vehicle movement data of government officials and military personnel flows through unclassified commercial systems with no special protections.

Zero-Trust Architecture: The system assumes trust based on credential possession rather than continuous verification of identity and authorization.

Compartmentalization: Access to local data provides access to national data. There is no segmentation limiting exposure from a single compromise.

Assumption of Breach: No evidence of security architecture designed with the assumption that adversaries will gain access.

Supply Chain Verification: Limited visibility into the security of hardware and software components deployed across thousands of locations.

What Comparable Systems Require

Defense industrial base companies accessing classified information must maintain CMMC certification with documented security controls. Financial institutions must comply with extensive cybersecurity requirements. Yet ALPR data that could reveal the movements of every vehicle in the country—including those of intelligence officers, military personnel, and government officials—flows through systems with security practices that have repeatedly been found deficient.

Recommendations

For Policymakers

  1. Classify aggregate location data as sensitive: The compilation of movement patterns across the country represents a national security asset that should be protected accordingly.
  2. Mandate security standards: Require ALPR vendors and operators to meet defined cybersecurity frameworks (NIST, CISA Secure By Design) with regular audits.
  3. Implement access controls: Require technical enforcement of access restrictions, not merely policy-based controls.
  4. Establish retention limits: Mandate data deletion schedules that limit the historical intelligence value of any potential compromise.
  5. Conduct supply chain review: Audit the hardware and software supply chain for ALPR equipment to identify potential foreign influence.

For Security Professionals

  1. Assume adversary access: Design security architectures with the assumption that foreign intelligence services are already inside or will gain access.
  2. Segment data: Implement compartmentalization so that local access does not provide national access.
  3. Monitor for anomalies: Implement behavioral analytics to detect unusual query patterns that might indicate compromised credentials or insider threats.
  4. Harden endpoints: Treat every ALPR camera and access terminal as a potential entry point for sophisticated adversaries.
  5. Plan for incident response: Develop capabilities to detect, respond to, and recover from compromise of ALPR infrastructure.

Conclusion

The United States has deployed a nationwide vehicle surveillance infrastructure with security architecture fundamentally unsuited to protecting against sophisticated nation-state adversaries. The same capabilities that enable domestic law enforcement to track vehicles across the country would, if compromised, provide foreign intelligence services with unprecedented situational awareness regarding the movements of American citizens, government officials, and military personnel.

The documented capabilities of Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean cyber operations—combined with the demonstrated vulnerabilities in ALPR systems—suggest this infrastructure represents a significant and underappreciated national security risk. The question is not whether adversaries are interested in this capability, but whether adequate defenses exist to prevent its exploitation.

Addressing this vulnerability requires treating aggregate vehicle location data as the sensitive national security asset it represents, rather than as a routine law enforcement tool with commercial-grade security.

This analysis is intended to inform security professionals and policymakers about infrastructure vulnerabilities from a technical perspective. It does not address or take positions on domestic policy debates regarding the appropriate use of surveillance technology.

About RocketCore LLC

RocketCore specializes in threat intelligence and cybersecurity solutions, including the Prometheus AI platform for ML-powered threat detection. I analyze security architectures to identify vulnerabilities before adversaries exploit them.

Contact: [email protected]

Last updated: February 2026