Organized Internet-based crime has reached such intensity and scale that the distinction between cybercrime and cyberwar is being blurred, security giant McAfee said in its annual Virtual Criminology Report. “Is the age of cyberwar at hand?”

McAfee asked in the report, citing evidence that countries hostile to industrial democracies are involved in some of the more serious and sustained cybercrime. In response, McAfee said, “nation-states are arming themselves for the cyberspace battlefield.”

Toyota Motor Corp. says the gas pedal design in more than 4 million other Toyota and Lexus vehicles makes them vulnerable to being trapped open by floor mats, and on November 25, it announced a costly recall to fix the problem. But drivers are convinced the incident were not caused by a floor mat.

Amid widening concern over unintended acceleration events, including an August 28 crash near San Diego that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and his family, Toyota has repeatedly pointed to “floor mat entrapment” as the problem. But accounts from motorists, interviews with auto safety experts and a Times review of thousands of federal traffic safety incident reports all point to another potential cause: the electronic throttles that have replaced mechanical systems in recent years.