Re: Energy: SMART Meters
Originally Posted by
Mups
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My gas man has been today to service my boiler, and I was talking to him about smart meters.
I asked him if he has one, and he said No, and he doesn't want one either.
He also said something I hadn't even thought of. He said burglars can use them to tell when people are in or not!!
Has anyone ever heard that before?
Just for YOU because I really do like YOU Mups I did a Google about this.
And here is a very recent newspaper article about it.
Got a Smart Meter installed?
Be afraid.
Be very afraid!
http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/...ter-rob-house/
Smart electricity meters carry vulnerabilities that could assist burglars and compromise privacy, but Australian households are not being warned of the risks, a leading cyber-security expert has warned.
Nigel Phair from the University of Canberra’s Centre for Internet Safety compiled a report on the risks of smart meters, which send data on a home’s utility use back to providers remotely rather than being read manually by an inspector.
The report said some smart meters, mostly used for gas and water, only sent information one way and were safe.
However, risks were particularly evident when a connection between the meter and provider sent information both ways — as is generally the case with smart electricity meters.
“Most of the devices are being built without any inbuilt security around them — and by that I mean password protection and no ability to update what we call the firmware as time goes on so they become safe devices,” Mr Phair said.
The report said that weakness left an opening for hackers, who could exploit the device once it was cracked.
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...secure-hackers
Smart electricity meters, of which there are more than 100m installed around the world, are frequently “dangerously insecure”, a security expert has said.
The lack of security in the smart utilities raises the prospect of a single line of malicious code cutting power to a home or even causing a catastrophic overload leading to exploding meters or house fires, according to Netanel Rubin, co-founder of the security firm Vaultra.
“Reclaim your home,” Rubin told a conference of hackers and security experts, “or someone else will.”
If a hacker took control of a smart meter they would be able to know “exactly when and how much electricity you’re using”, Rubin told the 33rd Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg. An attacker could also see whether a home had any expensive electronics.
“He can do billing fraud, setting your bill to whatever he likes … The scary thing is if you think about the power they have over your electricity. He will have power over all of your smart devices connected to the electricity. This will have more severe consequences: imagine you woke up to find you’d been robbed by a burglar who didn’t have to break in.
“But even if you don’t have smart devices, you are still at risk. An attacker who controls the meter also controls the meter’s software, allowing him to cause it to literally explode.”