In Hannover, Germany, the traffic lights turned green faster than usual due to computer experts hacking the traffic lights. They wanted to show how fires are easily manipulated and that municipalities use vulnerable technologies.
The hacking technique is simple. IT people only used a laptop, radio and antenna, they could easily interfere with traffic lights. By pressing the Enter key on their computer, they can change a traffic light from red to green faster and vice versa.
This practice could become dangerous for road users. However, this is not the objective of these experts. The main objective of these hacks is above all to point out security flaws in traffic lights.
Digital lights instead of analog
The computer scientists wanted to make their action public and turned to the German press to warn, but they remained anonymous because their action is still punishable by law. Very specifically, they underline the fact that traffic lights cannot all turn green at the same time, but that latency times between traffic lights can be artificially lengthened or shortened. Experts explain that this can cause traffic jams or accidents.
This fault comes from the signal used by the lights. Nearly 80 German cities, including Nuremberg, Munich, Augsburg and Ingolstadt, rely on analog radio instead of digital technology, which is easier to encrypt.
Analog radio is a very old protocol that does not have any security mechanisms. The manipulation of individual traffic lights is limited locally, but this shows how far digitization is lagging behind in the transport sector as well. By 2028, German cities will have to switch to digital radio.
Source: BFM TV
