Researchers Discover That Walk-Through Metal Detectors Can Be Hacked

You know those walk-through metal detectors that you have to go past when you’re at the airport? More often than not, they work pretty much as advertised. In fact, many of them work really well and can pick up all sorts of metallic objects in your pockets like loose change and so on.

However, it seems that these metal detectors can be hacked which means they could be hacked and modified so that if someone had metal in their pockets, it would not go off. This is according to the researchers at Cisco Talos who discovered that the iC module used in Garrett’s metal detectors can actually be hacked to knock them offline.

This module is used as a control center for the detector’s human operator. The person can use a laptop or any other kind of interface to remotely control the detector, as well as engage in real-time monitoring and diagnostics.

According to the researchers, “An attacker could manipulate this module to remotely monitor statistics on the metal detector, such as whether the alarm has been triggered or how many visitors have walked through. They could also make configuration changes, such as altering the sensitivity level of a device, which potentially poses a security risk to users who rely on these metal detectors.”

However, the good news is that those who own and use Garrett’s metal detectors, a firmware update of the iC module should fix the problem. The researchers had initially disclosed this to Garrett back in August, with the manufacturer issuing a fix in December.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Hack, Security