Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Top stories
  • Health
  • Crime
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Tech
  • Culture
  • Sports
  • Weird
  • 1-1-2
Image
Traffic lights in Amsterdam
Traffic lights in Amsterdam - Credit: Demanna / DepositPhotos - License: DepositPhotos
Innovation
traffic light
smart traffic light
Zolder
Wesley Neelen
Rik van Duijn
Esther Schoemaker
Talking Traffic
Sunday, 9 August 2020 - 07:59
Share this:
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • whatsapp
  • reddit

Smart traffic lights can be manipulated: Dutch researchers

Dutch security researchers managed to manipulate multiple smart traffic lights into turning green for them, without being near the traffic light. "At the traffic lights we examined, no one checked whether you are who you say you are,' Wesley Neelen of security company Zolder explained to NOS. As a result, he could pose remotely as a cyclist, prompting a traffic light to turn green for him.

Smart traffic lights will be installed on around 1,200 intersections in the Netherlands, with the aim of controlling traffic in a smarter way. They can, for example, give certain types of traffic priority so that people need to slow down or accelerate less often. The traffic lights Neelen and his colleague Rik van Duijn targeted use apps that road users can install to alert the lights of their approach.

Neelen and Van Duijn managed to mimic the data the app sends to the traffic light. "This allowed us to send unlimited so-called bicycles to a traffic light," Neelen said to the broadcaster. Van Duijn added: "We think that currently over a hundred traffic lights are susceptible to this."

The researchers only mimicked cyclists, but believe the same can be done for other road users. They don't think this problem they discovered is immediately super dangerous - it can't be used to turn all lights in an intersection green at the same time, for example. "The traffic light still determines who gets priority," Neelen said.

But there could be consequences if, for example, someone manages to mimic an ambulance and then always gets a green light, the researchers said. Or if an attacker sends virtual cyclists to an intersection from multiple sides, disrupting traffic.

The researchers informed the makers of the traffic lights about the problems they discovered. "They have pledged to improve their apps," Esther Schoemaker of Talking Traffic, a partnership for smart traffic lights, said to NOS.

Follow us:

Latest stories

  • Teze keeps PSV in the race with a late equalizer against Sevilla
  • Speaking (in Dutch) about bikes & the weather: The Delft Method at NedLes
  • Louis van Gaal returns to Ajax as board advisor
  • Dutch suspect among eight held in €157 million cocaine bust in Ireland
  • Dutch plan to regulate mid-market home leases will lower rent, but also supply: expert
  • XR to court over water cannon use during A12 protests; verdict on October 13

Top stories

  • One killed, two missing after boat capsizes in Noord-Brabant
  • Teen parents convicted of leaving baby to die in underground Amsterdam dumpster
  • Amsterdam restaurant crowned best restaurant in the world by Tripadvisor
  • Rwandan man arrested in Netherlands for acts of genocide in 1994
  • Municipalities want to cut financial support to many Ukrainian refugees
  • More hospitality businesses buckling under high costs and debts

© 2012-2023, NL Times, All rights reserved.

Footer menu

  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • Partner content