Lack of smart meter SIM lock meant large data leak

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 03 May 2011 22:53

Your IT - Mobility

A SIM card stolen from a smart meter has been used to rack up $193,187.43 in data and voice call charges, delivering an 18 month sentence and an order to repay the lot.

A 33 year-old disability pensioner, Kylie Maree Monks, has received an 18 month sentence and an order to repay nearly $200,000 in Hobart's Supreme Court.

The news was reported in The Mercury and ABC Online and saw the theft of a Telstra-supplied SIM card used in Aurora Energy's smart meters.

With the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't wise to have SIM cards within that weren't locked to the smart meters, but instead were unlocked, allowing use in a smartphone or 3G USB modem.

The SIM card was used to download movies, surf the net and social networking sites, presumably also check email, as well as make phone calls, all of which were being billed to Aurora Energy.

The Telstra bill for less than four month's usage grew to nearly $200,000, prompting action was taken to find out what happened to the stolen SIM card, with The Mercury reporting Ms Monks elaborate and changed story in court which tried to explain away her possession and usage of the SIM card in question.

The imposition of an 18-month sentence and an order to repay the $193,187.43 shows the court was not swayed.

The episode has undoubtedly been a security and financial wake-up call to industrial users of smart devices requiring SIM cards for data access, and a digital/Internet security and financial fraud wake-up call along with all the other ones we've all recently seen.

Aurora Energy has obviously asked Telstra to lock its other smart meter SIM cards, and every other smart meter user has presumably promptly done the same, too, to avoid anyone's smart meter SIM cards leaking data any longer.