- Undocumented cellular radios were found in power inverter and battery systems used in US Highway Infrastructure
- Concerns include remote marks, data theft and sabotage
- Many affected devices were made in China, which ruled tension over cyber security and foreign tech, where China denies any wrongdoing
Certain power inveres and battery control systems (BMS) found in highway infrastructure equipment located along US roads contained “undocumented cellular radios”.
This is, according to a new security advice that is distributed by the US Ministry of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration last month, Pakinomist reported.
At this point, it seems that no one knows for sure who placed the radios or what their purpose is, but there is speculation that hardware could be used for externally manipulating equipment, stealing data or sabotage the roadside infrastructure.
Hidden Coms in Highway Tech
The hardware containing these power inverters and BMS ‘includes characters, traffic cameras, weather stations, solar -powered visitors areas and warehouses and electric vehicle chargers.
The Federal Highway Administration advised local authorities to invent all inverters installed on US motorways and scan them with spectrum analysis technology to see if they contained any unexpected communication. If they find something, they need to disable and remove the radios and make sure their network is properly segmented.
While the question remains who placed the radios, many of the installed inverters were made in China. The Chinese Embassy in Washington told Pakinomist in a statement that it opposed “distortion and smear of China’s results in energy infrastructure.”
This is not the first time China was in the episent of a cyber-spyage story when a story similar to this one was published on Pakinomist in May. During Donald Trump’s first period as US president, he also banned Huawei from building his 5G infrastructure for fear that the Chinese company may have been pressed by its government to install back doors and allow the Chinese government to intercept us communication. Other companies, such as ZTE, were also blacklisted at that time.
China always refused all accusations and offered to open its source code and allow European supervision during installation.
Via Pakinomist
