Kaspersky Lab has issued an alert saying all gas stations operating around the world are exposed to remote takeover, often for years, if remain unchecked. The Russia based software provider said that hackers can launch cyber attacks on embedded gas station controllers of which there are currently over 1,000 installed and operating online.
Researchers from Kaspersky say that these connected gas stations have been running on a controller placed over a decade ago and had been connected to the internet ever since.
“When it comes to connected devices they are vulnerable to cyber attacks”, said Ido Naor, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab. He added that as these controllers run on Linux based operating systems there is a high probability that these devices can get easily exposed to cyber attacks.
In one of the instances, researchers were able to take control of these gas stations and could play with the settings of the fuel station operations leading to gas station shut down, fuel leakages, change in fuel prices, intercept payment terminals to steal money and manipulate the data related to license plates and driver identities.
And the only way to stay protected against hackers invasion is to keep all the systems related to gas stations up to date with the latest security updates.
Now, coming to the other story related to Kaspersky Anti Virus software, we all know that the said software’s usage has been banned in all government as well as private agencies operating across the United States since September last year.
And the order to ban the Russia based software company was pronounced by Department of Homeland Security(DHS) under the supervision of Donald Trump.
Challenging the ban across the federal system, Kaspersky filed a preliminary injunction order against the DHS On Jan 17th of this year. The Cybersecurity software provider which has over 400 million users across the globe mentioned in its petition that it has no need to support or work for Russian Intelligence.
But as of now, the Trump Administration is in no mood to listen to the words of Kaspersky Lab.
So, better luck next time Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of Kaspersky Labs.