Hackers can take over car navigation system
By Jasper Copping, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:33pm BST 05/05/2007
Motorists who use satellite navigation systems are being warned that hackers can "break in" and send bogus directions.
Using instructions available on the internet and equipment costing less than £100 available from electronic shops, pranksters, or even terrorists, could cause major disruption on the roads.
The hackers can send bogus information over the FM airwaves via transmitters and antennae, replicating messages regularly sent to satellite navigation systems by traffic monitoring companies such as Trafficmaster to warn of congestion or road closures.
When the navigator detects the message, whether it is bogus or genuine, it will provide a different route.
Depending on the gadget's setting, it may even do so without notifying the driver.
Andreas Barisani, of the UK-based firm Inverse Path, which demonstrated the scam at a conference in Canada, said: "It is actually very simple. You can close roads, you can create queues and you can redirect people.
"You can direct traffic all on to one route and create a clear route for yourself. There are all sorts of uses for this.
"The current system of sending this information uses very old technology. We need to move to a new system that encyrpts the message."
Sheila Rainger, the head of campaigns for the RAC Foundation, said: "It would be a shame if this succeeded in undermining people's confidence in the ability of sat navs to alert people to traffic congestion, because that is one of their great strengths.
"It is good for the driver, good for congestion and good for the environment, because you are not stuck in a jam.
"But sat navs should be a helping hand, not a replacement brain. People shouldn't hand over all sense of direction to them. You can always get in touch with operators if you are getting very strange directions from your sat nav."
Phil Hale, from Trafficmaster, admitted: "This is possible but people who do it would be breaking the law."
