security: Stealing SIM cards from traffic lights

TRX
01-19-2011

from schneier.com:
January 13, 2011
Stealing SIM Cards from Traffic Lights

Johannesburg installed hundreds of networked traffic lights on its streets. The lights use a cellular modem and a SIM card to communicate.

Those lights introduced a security risk I'll bet no one gave a moment's thought to: that criminals might steal the SIM cards from the traffic lights and use them to make free phone calls. But that's exactly what happened.

Aside from the theft of phone service, repairing those traffic lights is far more expensive than those components are worth.

full entry at: Schneier on Security: Stealing SIM Cards from Traffic Lights

TRX
01-19-2011

Bruce's blog about people stealing SIM cards out of traffic lights reminded me of my bank.

My local bank has put a bunch of those little animated picture frames at their teller windows. They're little LCD displays. No sound, just zoomed faces and gesturing limbs, apparently earnestly trying to sell something. What interested me was that each one had a little USB thumbdrive stuck in the side. Gee, I could use a few spares...

I mentioned this to a friend. She said "You know, rather than just collecting spare thumbdrives, you could swap them out and have the displays play anything you wanted."

Hmm...