Some sensor devices commonly used in cities across Europe, North America and Asia have been found to be open to attack by hackers, with the potential to cause chaos with traffic, flood and radiation warnings, and other alarms.
IBM’s security arm X-Force Red and Threatcare reported 17 vulnerabilities in devices sold by Libelium, Echelon, and Battelle. Left unpatched, the flaws could allow cybercriminals to gain access to sensors and manipulate data. Some of the weaknesses flagged include default passwords, authentication bypasses and exposure to the Internet.