A group of University of Michigan scientists hacked into nearly 100 wirelessly networked traffic lights to expose the flaws associated with the system.
According to a report from TechnologyReview.com, a team of computer scientists received permission from a Michigan road agency to perform the study, and found three major weaknesses in the traffic light system.
The weaknesses were unencrypted wireless connections, the use of default usernames and passwords that could be found online, and a debugging port that is vulnerable to attacks.
"The vulnerabilities we discover in the infrastructure are not a fault of any one device or design choice, but rather show a systemic lack of security consciousness," researchers wrote of their findings.
The flaws in the system, researchers said, show that anyone with a computer can tap into same frequency as the intersection radios and gain access to the unencrypted network.
After gaining access, the researchers found they could easily control the timing of all the signals of the neighborhood and, for example, turn all the lights at an intersection green or red.
"At the end of their report, Halderman and his group propose simple recommendations for improving the security of traffic infrastructure. First and foremost, traffic-system administrators should not use default usernames and passwords. Also, they should stop broadcasting communications unencrypted for 'casual observers and curious teenagers' to see," TechnologyReview.com wrote.
Read the full report here.