Smart Meter Hack Shuts Off The Lights

  • 2 October 2014
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By Kelly Jackson Higgins / Posted on 10/2/2014
 
European researchers will reveal major security weaknesses in smart meters that could allow an attacker to order a power blackout.
 A widely deployed smart meter device can be programmed to cause a power blackout or commit power usage fraud.
Researchers Javier Vazquez Vidal and Alberto Garcia Illera will reveal this month at Black Hat Europe in Amsterdam how they reverse engineered smart meters and found blatant security weaknesses that allowed them to commandeer the devices to shut down power or perform electricity usage fraud over the power line communications network. The researchers aren't disclosing the specific smart meter manufacturer at this time -- they haven't yet disclosed anything to the vendor in question, either. They have hinted heavily that it's a brand installed broadly in Spain, their native country.
The smart meter device Vazquez Vidal and Garcia Illera tested stores the same pair of symmetric AES-128 encryption keys inside every such device. An attacker who lifted these keys would be able to send commands -- including an order to shut down power -- directly to the smart meter. The microchip inside the device contains the readable keys, the researchers say.
 
DarkReading/ Article/ http://www.darkreading.com/perimeter/smart-meter-hack-shuts-off-the-lights/d/d-id/1316242?

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