Internal Security
Post by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit
As we do every year, we poll our readers to get a snapshot of what they are looking for in a magazine and how they see the current state of the transportation industry. What’s interesting is that security has been one of the lowest-rated issues for our readers for several years now. Granted, if you are running a small rural agency, you probably don’t have to worry about terrorists.
Of course, now with the amount of technological integration in public transit, you have to keep an eye on the people working for you more than ever. Quis custo diet ipsos custodes indeed.
For those not familiar with that Latin quote, it roughly translates to, “Who watches the watchmen.” Who is watching the people that are watching your system?
Sunday a network administrator for San Francisco’s municipal computer network was arrested for giving himself unfettered access to the city’s network, purportedly creating an über-password for his use only, and locking out other administrators in the process.
From reports this situation stemmed from a conflict between the administrator and his supervisor, and other than the time and trouble needed to rectify the password situation, no harm was done. Of course, that’s not the point. This isn’t a matter of what was done, but what could have been done.
Now think about this in a transit sense. How many transit authorities are installing remote viewing capabilities for their video systems? AVL is commonplace and almost required in many systems. What about Wi-Fi access to video recorders? Or Wi-Fi downloads of technical information from a vehicle. Farebox totals?
I know, I know, every one of these systems is protected from tampering. But most of them are protected from tampering from someone outside of the system. If a clever IT guy decides to start messing around with your system, will anyone notice?
Of course, this is a slippery slope towards paranoia, but it pays to be safe. And if transit systems are safer than ever before due to better security systems, it’s worth a second look to make sure the security system is just as safe as the transit system itself.
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,