• , Wednesday, December 2, 2015 10:01 AM

In the age of the internet of things, where all kinds of old-fashioned devices and technologies are now connecting to the net, everything can be hacked, including cars,cities, parking garages, and wind turbines. Now, a security researcher has proven this adage once more, finding a way to turn off the lights on tens of thousands of billboards by taking advantage of some flaws in an Android app designed to control the billboards' lighting system. Over the summer, Randy Westergren, an independent security researcher, found that the Android app for SmartLink, a system to remotely control billboards' night lighting,had a series of bugs in its API. These bugs allowed any malicious hacker to easily shut off the lights on any billboard in the SmartLink system, which is provided by a company called OutdoorLink, as Westergren explained in a blog post published on Sunday.

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