Sensors widely used in the energy industry to monitor industrial processes are vulnerable to attack from 40 miles away using radio transmitters, according to alarming new research.
Researchers Lucas Apa and Carlos Mario Penagos of IOActive, a computer security firm, say they've found a host of software vulnerabilities in the sensors, which are used to monitor metrics such as temperature and pipeline pressure, that could be fatal if abused by an attacker.
Apa and Penagos are scheduled to give a presentation next Thursday at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas but gave IDG News Service a preview of their research. They can't reveal many details due to the severity of the problems.
"If you compromise a company on the Internet, you can cause a monetary loss," Penagos said. "But in this case, [the impact] is immeasurable because you can cause loss of life."
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