Curbed LA: CurbedWire: Digital Billboard Sabotage on La Brea?
It almost happened. A number of Clear Channel digital billboards in Los Angeles appeared to get hacked, in the first appearance of digital graffiti that I’ve heard of. As it turns out however, the graffiti was actually a purchased advertisement on the signs, made to look like a hack. A clever marketing gimmick to be sure, the digital equivalent of the "advitorial."
Every digital signage provider will tell you how secure and hack proof their software is, but the reality is that even with the best security in your software there are countless ways in which you are relying upon the perfect compliance from a variety of people. A dirty little secret is that many public installations are far from secure. Do a Youtube search for "kiosks hacks" if you don’t believe me. It’s only a mater of time before something like this does happen for real.
I wonder if these signs will cause some hackers to set their sights on the digital billboards for real?
Leave a Reply