In Taiwan, a 23-year-old college student is in hot water after hacking the country’s high speed rail system with a hodge-podge setup consisting of a laptop and a couple of radios. According to the Taipei Times, the incident disrupted four separate trains, causing nearly an hours-long delay across various rail lines.
Identified only by his surname Lin, the student is alleged to have sent an alarm signal to the Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSRC) control center, which triggered a travel-stop and subsequent investigation.
Basically, Lin had used a software-defined radio — a simple device using software instead of hardware to receive and broadcast radio signals — to monitor the THSRC’s channels. Analyzing the data he intercepted, the college student was able to crack the various rail codes so that he could later transmit his own, a feat which required breaking through seven layers of verification.
While the hacking was reckless, Lin isn’t the only one to blame here. Per Tom’s Hardware, the college kid was able to break through those seven seals thanks to the fact that rail authorities hadn’t changed a set of cryptographic keys in 19 years — since Lin was four years old, to put things in perspective.
The situation is already sparking political discourse around rail infrastructure security.
“If a college student could hack into a system as sophisticated as that of the high-speed rail system, what would happen if the same thing happened with the Taiwan Railway Corp’s system?” Taiwanese politician Ho Shin-chun asked in a state Transportation Committee meeting, referring to the state-owned rail company.
When Ho asked if anyone had notified the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board — an independent government agency responsible for investigating transportation incidents — the board said they hadn’t been informed.
For his part, Lin was arrested over three weeks after the incident, and it remains unclear whether the hacker had an accomplice. In his defense, Lin stated that he “had [the radio] in my pocket and accidently pressed the button.” If authorities don’t buy that story, he could face up to ten years in prison for the stunt — which will hopefully be enough time for transit officials to change the crypto keys to Taiwan’s HSR kingdom.
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