German meters can spy on homes

Quick Take: German researchers have revealed that smart meters installed at German provider Discovergy are vulnerable to outside attack. Speaking at the Chaos Computing Congress, the two men said they were able to alter rates, get access to consumer information, even learn what movies consumers had watched. As you can read in the story from MSNBC, the duo exploited sloppy procedures and poor choices by Discovergy.

Sadly, we've been hearing similar tales about U.S. utilities. They don't bother with security for their pilots. Then, when it's finally time for deployment, security is an afterthought that gets layered on later, leaving many gaps. - By Jesse Berst

The researchers, Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus, signed up as Discovergy customers and found that the company's equipment was sending unencrypted data from home devices to the company's servers through an insecure link. They said Discovergy was monitoring customers' electricity use at 2-second intervals, which they considered unnecessary and intrusive, according to the news story. The two also sent back faked meter readings to the company and were able to get all of the information collected by smart meters in homes.

Following their presentation, Discovergy CEO Nikolaus Starzacher, went on stage and said the security problems would be taken care of "as quickly as possible" – and added that the company had initiated the 2-second monitoring frequency to allow it to alert customers if they left an iron or stove on accidentally.

Jesse Berst is the founder and chief analyst of Smart Grid News.com. He consults to smart grid companies seeking market entry advice and M&A advisory. A frequent keynoter at industry events in the US and abroad, he also serves on the Advisory Council of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Energy & Environment directorate.

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