14 DAY TRIAL // A hacker decided to boost Donald Trump's visibility in the GOP nomination race by breaking into a road sign and changing its default message into one in support of the Republican candidate.
The road sign, spotted and filmed by Nikki Worden (video below), is operated by Caltrans and located at northbound 15 Freeway at Ontario Avenue in Corona, California. According to the video she posted on Facebook, the road sign was hacked to say, "Inland Empire supports Donald Trump - Merry Xmas - Vote Donald Trump."
KABC-TV Channel 7 reporters contacted the Riverside County Transportation Commission, who confirmed that the road sign was hacked. "Someone accessed the message sign. Hacked into the message and changed it for their own purposes," said Anne Mayer, spokeswoman for the commission.
Officials inspected the sign at its location and found that its configuration box was unlocked. Despite this, officials said that a password was also needed to access the sign's configuration panel.
Unfortunately, enough security vulnerabilities exist in road signs and billboards, as proved by other security researchers in the past, and if the device were using a simple password, a basic brute-force attack would be more than sufficient to allow the hacker to access its settings.
The road sign was defaced on Christmas night, December 25, and by the second day, authorities regained control of its display.