The California Highway Patrol is currently investigating three instances of car swatting in the Bay Area this weekend. According to Francis L. Poncherello, CHP spokesperson, the latest incident occurred when a car was stopped in San Francisco at about noon today when a CHP officer noticed an Amber Alert notice on the vehicle digital license plate. Patrol cars from three different jurisdictions participated in the stop of the vehicle. Malcom Reynolds and his wife Jayne were forced from their car at gunpoint and handcuffed before the offices realized that Amber Alert on the tag was part of an ongoing cyber attack on the State’s new RiPlate, digital license plates.
Derrail Book, CEO of Reaver Electronics, explained that the RiPlates produced by his company had included the Amber Alert notice as an option on their digital license plates as a way to help police agencies locate and identify vehicle being used by kidnappers. “We have strong software controls designed into the system that only allow police departments equipped with an RiTerminal to activate the Amber Alert notices on our RiPlates,” Derrail explained; “This weekend’s problem must be due to inadequate administrative controls in local police terminals that can remotely access our plates.”
The first car swatting incident occurred in San Francisco early Saturday morning. A car owned by Congressman Harvey Milk was surrounded by a police tactical squad in the parking garage of the Muir Marriott Hotel. The license plate on the vehicle matched a plate that was reported to be involved in the recent theft of explosive from a construction site in San Mateo on Friday. The Congressman was upstairs receiving an award from the San Francisco Retired Police Organization (SFRPO) for his support for families of police officers wounded in the line of duty. When Milk returned to his car 30-minutes later he found that the trunk and doors had been forced open and the car was undergoing a detailed search for explosives. A digital license plate reader at the Hotel captured a picture of the license plate on the Congressman’s car, it matched the number of the car that was being looked for in the San Mateo case.
In theory, once the Department of Motor Vehicles assigned a license plate number to the RiPlate, it can only be changed by order of the DMV. Reaver Electronics actually makes the change, but only when ordered by the DMV. Book told reporters this morning that there is no record of a change being made to the RiPlate on Milk’s car.
When asked if there could have been a cyber attack on his company’s computer systems, Book replied: “We have very strong cybersecurity controls in place on our corporate networks. We have promised the Governor and the DMV that our systems will not allow unauthorized access to the RiPlates or their supporting technology.”
The National Critical Infrastructure Security Operations
Center (CI-SOC) is helping the Highway Patrol investigate these three car
swatting incidents. General Buck Turgidson, CI-SOC Director, reminded reporters
this afternoon that there is no such thing as an unhackable system. “We have
not yet found a hackable vulnerability in the system, but we have just started
looking.”
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