The Night the Lights Went Out in Vegas

Architecture and Background

Barrett Weisshaar & Garret Picchioni - The Night The Lights Went Out In Vegas: Demystifying Smartmeter Networks Smart meter technology is moving from news PR item to reality in many major utility markets, bringing with it the promise of fewer site visits and lower rates. With these devices, your local utility can perform a variety of actions from starting/stopping service, upgrading your meter, or even shutting off certain 'smart' appliances (air conditioners, etc) during peak demand to avoid brownouts. All of this is accomplished using a wireless network of meters and relay stations to transmit commands, power readings, and the like. But is this network the result of lessons hard learned by previous mistakes in wireless technologies (WiMAX), or do all claims of security rely on a closed system of obscurity (FHSS)?

Vulnerability Analysis

Armed with the services of a USRP software radio, we set about to probe the underlying structure of the smart meter network and analyze the security (or lack thereof) of the transmission methods. Can your neighbor's 3am parties finally be silenced? Was your service utilization "really" that low for the month? Come to find out!

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Barrett Weisshaar is a Security Consultant at Trustwave. He is a member of Trustwave's SpiderLabs - the advanced security team focused on penetration testing, incident response, and application security. He has been in the information technology field for nearly a decade, focusing on just about everything at some point or another. Prior to joining Trustwave, Barrett worked as a security consultant for Deloitte & Touche, focusing on retail security, security architecture, and avoiding audit projects as much as possible.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Barrett holds a Bachelor's from the University of Notre Dame and an M.S. in Information Security from Carnegie Mellon University. Garret Picchioni is an Undergraduate student, working as a Student Employee for The University of Arizona and as a Network Engineering Intern for the Ridgetop Group - the world leader in providing advanced electronic prognostics and health management (PHM) solutions, semiconductor IP blocks, and built-in self-test (BIST) solutions for critical applications. He has spent the last 5 years in the information technology industry, focusing on desktop support, systems administration, network administration, and avoiding mail servers but is now actively involved with product design as an intern. Garret is obtaining his degree from The University of Arizona and is looking to specialize in the security and network engineering career fields upon graduation. For copies of the slides and additional materials please see the DEF CON 18 Archive here: