Vehicle-As-A-Weapon Threats in Cities: A Global Analysis of Attack Patterns
Vehicle-As-A-Weapon Threats in Cities: A Global Analysis of Attack Patterns
Codee Roy Ludbey Daniel Versaci Samyak Bharthur Shreemen Prabhakaran Core42, Chippendale, AustraliaCodee Roy Ludbey is co-Managing Director of Core42, a boutique Australian protective security advisory firm, and a doctoral researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, where his thesis, The Security of Public Places, develops the concept of protective placemaking through three-phase action research. He leads the firm’s research programme, including its vehicle-as-a-weapon incident database, threat-characterisation work, and threat-intelligence products for public institutions. In practice he directs threat and vulnerability assessments, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) reviews, and security assurance for major transport, cultural, and civic projects across Australia. His work bridges scholarship and practice, translating research on hostile-vehicle mitigation, public-space security, and the political economy of protection into decision-ready advice for designers, engineers, and asset owners. His research interests centre on how societies distribute responsibility for security across public and private actors in the built environment.Daniel Versaci is co-Managing Director of Core42, based in Perth, Western Australia, where he leads the firm’s protective security engineering and design practice. He specialises in electronic security design, physical security requirements, and crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) for complex, high-consequence environments, including defence estate, critical infrastructure, and major transport projects. His engagements span security risk assessment, technical security design, and independent peer review across naval, aviation, and rail assets. Over more than a decade in practice he has authored and approved physical security requirements, threat and vulnerability assessments, and security operations strategies for government and private-sector clients. His work focuses on integrating security into the design and delivery of built assets, translating threat and risk into constructable, standards-aligned engineering outcomes that endure across the asset lifecycle.Samyak Bharthur is a security researcher and consultant at Core42, where he supports the firm’s threat-intelligence and protective security research programmes. His work spans threat and vulnerability analysis for rail security assessments, threat-intelligence products, and the firm’s research on vehicle-as-a-weapon attacks and hostile-vehicle mitigation. He contributes to threat characterisation, risk analysis, and the evidence base underpinning Core42’s advisory work across major transport and public-realm projects. His interests lie in the empirical study of attack methods and the translation of incident data into decision-ready threat assessments for the design and protection of public places.Shreemen Prabhakaran is a protective security leader with nearly twenty years of experience across government, enterprise, and academia. His practice sits at the intersection of systems thinking, behavioural insight, and enterprise risk, building security models that are embedded, intelligent, and responsive to complex threat environments. In aviation he has conducted more than thirty international airport audits, including high-risk operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and across Africa and the Middle East. In government he has developed national risk frameworks under the SOCI Act and the PSPF at the Office of Transport Security and the Clean Energy Regulator.