The BBC reports that thousands of seismic sensors monitoring geological activity are vulnerable to manipulation by way of cyber attack, though the seismic gear maker disputes the researchers’ findings.
The poor security controls around the way the sensors transmit data were detailed in a presentation at the Def Con hacker convention.
Researchers found ways to fool and overload sensors so monitoring systems would get wildly inaccurate readings.The findings have been reported to the US computer emergency organisation (sp) that oversees national infrastructure.
Nanometrics, the company that makes the sensor system that was probed disputed the researchers’ findings.