Jalopnik: hackers

Sign Hackers At It Again, What's A "F*** Taco?"

The Auto Insider — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:30:00 EDT

We've repeatedly told you not to hack road signs, but you people never listen. Only this time you're professing your love for stuff like a "f**k taco," "b**l sack," and "mudkipz." Whatever those are.

WTOP news radio reports that a couple of crazy intarw3bz hax0rs have gotten hold of another road side construction side in Rosslyn, Virginia near the Key Bridge yesterday morning. Virginia Department of Transportation was not amused in the slightest, quickly turning off the sign, but not before local media was able to capture the sign in all its Pokeman internet meme glory. [dcist via wtop] (Hat Tip To Michael!)

Hackers Using Parking Tickets As Trojan Horses

Ben Wojdyla — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:30:00 EST

Hackers in Grand Forks, North Dakota of all places have hit on a clever Trojan Horse: using a fraudulent parking ticket to direct unsuspecting motorists to their virus laden websites.

The scam works like this: You come back to your parked car and there's a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Everything looks official so you go home, and, being a law abiding citizen you visit the website on the ticket as directed. In order to make sure it was your car, you have to flip through a gallery of evidence and find your car. In order to do this, you have to download a toolbar and that's how they get you. The toolbar is loaded up with an executable file. When the computer restarts is when the fun begins. Your computer becomes a nightmare of pop-up windows talking about downloadable antivirus software and all hell breaks loose from there.

It is a pretty clever scam, and we have to hand it to this particular hacker for thinking laterally. That doesn't mean we don't want virus-generating hackers to burn for eternity in the deepest, most fiery pits of hell but... at least he or she isn't hacking electronic road signs, right? [BBC]

Hackers Get Free Ride On California FasTrak Toll System

Mark Arnold — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:20:00 EDT

Security researcher Nate Lawson has found that the California Bay Area's FasTrak toll transponders have some significant privacy problems. The RFID devices are designed to receive and transmit data to allow for stop-free tollways, but Lawson's research found that someone with the right know-how and an RFID reader could walk around a parking lot and steal IDs from the transponders in parked cars. The stolen IDs could then be written to another transponder, allowing the thief to charge their tolls to the account of the unsuspecting victim, giving the hackers a free ride. But what is perhaps more unsettling is the ability to completely wipe information off victims' transponders, since the units support unauthenticated over-the-air upgrading.

Imagine the chaos that would ensue if a large number of people had their toll transponders cease to function. One possible fix would be for the existing cameras (that snap photos of cars without transponders) to take photos of random cars in an effort to catch the occasional RFID pirate, but any changes to the actual transponders would have to be passed through the California legislative system. Until then, you may want to just pay cash. [hackaday] (Hat tip to Fabienne!)