2 Los Angeles traffic engineers admit hacking

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-engineers6-2008nov06,0,3327448.story

By Andrew Blankstein
Los Angeles Times
November 5, 2008

Two Los Angeles traffic engineers admitted today to hacking into a 
computer system that controls traffic lights before a job action related 
to contract negotiations with the city, prosecutors said.

Gabriel Murillo, 39, and Kartik Patel, 36, who worked with the city's 
Automated Traffic Surveillance Center, each pleaded guilty to a single 
felony count of illegally accessing a city computer connected to the 
center.

The illegal access occurred hours before a job action in August 2006 by 
members of the Engineers and Architects Assn., which represents the 
engineers who run and maintain the city's traffic center. It took four 
days to get the traffic control system fully operational afterward and 
underscored the vulnerability of L.A.'s the complex system.

The breach, reported on Aug. 21, 2006 between 9:10 and 9:30 p.m., 
involved sending computer commands that disconnected four signal control 
boxes at critical intersections: Sky Way and World Way at LAX; Coldwater 
Canyon Avenue and Riverside Drive in the San Fernando Valley; Alvarado 
Street and Glendale Boulevard at Berkeley Avenue in Echo Park; and 1st 
and Alameda streets downtown.

Prosecutors argued that the pair picked intersections they knew would 
cause significant backups because they were close to freeways and major 
destinations. They said the red lights would be extremely long on the 
most congested approaches to the intersections, causing gridlock for 
several days.

[...]


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