Move Over Murdoch – How to Hack a Smart Meter

Original story found on The Register – excerpts below:

“White-hat hackers have exposed the privacy shortcomings of smart meter technology.

“The researchers said German firm Discovergy apparently allowed information gathered by its smart meters to travel over an insecure link to its servers. The information – which could be intercepted – apparently could be interpreted to reveal not only whether or not users happened to be at home and consuming electricity at the time but even what film they were watching, based on the fingerprint of power usage.  The many surprising secrets revealed by some smart meter set-ups were revealed during a presentation by researchers Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus at the 28th Chaos Computing Congress (28c3) hacker conference in Berlin late last month.

“During the talk, entitled, Smart Hacking for Privacy (YouTube video here), the researchers explained that they came across numerous security and privacy-related issues after signing up with the smart electricity meter service supplied by Discovergy.

“Some security experts, most notably Ross Anderson, professor in security engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, have warned that smart metering introduces a “strategic vulnerability” that might be exploited to remotely switch off elements on the gas or electricity supply grid. Government ministers in the UK have downplayed such fears but the work of the German researchers raise new concerns, related to privacy.”

Story in full here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/09/smart_meter_privacy_oops/