From the category archives:

Critical-Infrastructure

Hacking Airport X-Ray Machines: Terrorist Implications

April 20, 2010

(Part 2 of a 2 part series) In part one of this series, we examined the latest generation airport full-body scanners and explored the privacy concerns raised by many regarding potential abuses of this technology, to include the unauthorized preservation and sharing of nude images of passengers passing through the devices. In this second article, we look more closely at significantly more nefarious abuses of airport X-ray scanner machines, to include their potential abuse by terrorists.

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Hacking Airport X-Ray Machines for Fun and Porn

March 29, 2010

(Part 1 of a 2 part series) Ever since the unsuccessful bombing attempt against Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day 2009, there has been renewed scrutiny of airport security measures. Given that the suspected bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to easily pass through security with mixture of explosive materials, including PETN and triacetone triperoxide (TAPN), it is not surprising that extensive scrutiny has been focused on the adequacy of current airport X-ray scanners. In the wake of this incident a phalanx of politicians and security officials from around the world has arisen, including the former Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who have called for the widespread adoption of whole-body imaging scanners that use radio waves or X-rays to reveal objects beneath a person’s clothes. The new generation of airport security scanners are based upon one of two underlying technologies, [...]

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100 Cars Remotely Hacked: The Back-Door in Your Vehicle May Not Be the One You Think

March 18, 2010

Recently in Austin, Texas (United States), over 100 cars were rendered entirely unusable after a hacker gained access to a previously undisclosed “black box” hidden inside the vehicle by the automobile dealership that sold the cars. The purpose of the black box was to remotely disable vehicles for automobile owners who failed to make payments on time to the dealership. In the ‘good-old days,’ dealers who attempted to repossess cars were faced with the challenge of actually locating the car and towing them away, often in the middle of the night, in a high-risk operation which often resulted in confrontations with the vehicle owners. Now, as the result of technological ‘advances’ a company known as Pay Teck has developed a method for “ensuring payment for cars and equipment from customers who may have a less-than-perfect credit rating by installing a controller that allows dealers to disable the starter function of [...]

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New Non-Latin Alphabet Internet Domains May Offer New Criminal Opportunities

December 31, 2009

Paypal Cyrillic Example In what some are calling one of the biggest changes in Internet’s history, the board of ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) recently approved the use of Web addresses written in non-Latin Alphabets, including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. Thus as of mid-2010, it will be possible to type an entire domain name on Kanji, Cyrillic or Hebrew. The move has been hailed as a major step forward in the internationalization, and even the democratization of the Internet, beyond its English only roots. While the move may open up the Internet to regions such as the Middle East and Asia, it is not without its potential future crime problems. Gizmodo ran an interesting article on the topic in which a researcher noted the possibility of presenting a non-roman alphabet (such as Cyrillic) in such a way as to cause confusion among the public as to [...]

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