Hacked road sign warns of British invasion

Filed Under: Law & order

Hacked road sign warning that the British are coming
First there was a warning that there were zombies on the road ahead, now another hacked road sign is spreading news that the British are invading America.

According to media reports, an electronic road sign being used by construction workers in Lubbock, northern Texas, was hacked on Friday to display the message: "OMG THE BRITISH R COMING. THEY R WATCHING YOU."

My guess is that this is a copycat attack, inspired by the high amount of media coverage received by the hack of another road sign in Austin, Texas, in late January, which warned "Caution! Zombies Ahead!" and "Nazi Zombies! Run!!!"

Hacks like this might seem like harmless fun and I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but you can imagine how messing around with road signs could actually lead to a dangerous accident - either for the people doing the roadside hacking or for innocent motorists.

The companies putting these signs by the roadside need to take better care to secure them (both physically and with hard-to-guess software passwords) before the craze of road sign hacking becomes an epidemic.

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About the author

Graham Cluley is senior technology consultant at Sophos. The readers of Computer Weekly voted him security blogger of the year in 2009 and 2010, and he pipped Stephen Fry to the title of "Twitter user of the year" too. Which was nice. He was also named "Best Security Blogger" by the readers of SC Magazine in 2011. You can subscribe to Graham's updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.