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Report: Watch Dogs Game May Have Influenced Highway Sign Hacking

Posted by Soulskill on from the video-games-caused-the-holocaust dept.

An anonymous reader writes 'Earlier this month, at least three U.S. states reported that a hacker had broken into electronic road signs above major highways, with the hacker leaving messages for people to follow him on Twitter. The Multi-State Information Sharing an Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) produced an intelligence report blaming a Saudi Arabian hacker that the organization says likely got the idea from Watch Dogs, a new video in which game play revolves around "hacking," with a focus on hacking critical infrastructure-based electronic devices in particular. "Watch Dogs allows players to hack electronic road signs, closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs), street lights, cell phones and other systems. On May 27, 2014, the malicious actor posted an image of the game on his Twitter feed, demonstrating his interest in the game, and the compromise of road signs occurs during game play. CIS believes it is likely that a small percentage of Watch Dogs players will experiment with compromising computers and electronic systems outside of game play, and that this activity will likely affect SSLT [state, local, tribal and territorial] government systems and Department of Transportation (DOT) systems in particular." The signs allowed telnet and were secured with weak or default passwords. The report came out on the same day that The Homeland Security Department cautioned transportation operators about a security hole in some electronic freeway billboards that could let hackers display bogus warnings to drivers.'

4 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Well then the SOLUTION is obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sometimes the message they need to display changes

  2. Re:Much older than that game by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yup, back in the 90's all you had to do was wardial and find the sign's dial in. most of the time the password was retarded simple like 12345.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. Re:Much older than that game by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's also happened fairly recently before the game came out, warning people about the city being closed because it's too hot, zombies, and GODZILLA.

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    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  4. Did they even bother to change the passwords? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Back when I was a kid the passwords were all "DOT". Then they wised up and changed them all to "DOT1".