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Drivers in Brisbane have been forced to take a long, hard look at a digital billboard after hackers penetrated a loophole and displayed porn on it.
Leading Queensland digital billboard company goa had its billboard on Milton Road in south-east Queensland hacked, showing pornography for as long as three minutes.
“At 9.23am [on Sunday] morning, a single digital LED screen began to show inappropriate content of a pornographic nature,” goa said in a statement.
“The transmission of this material ran for between a number of seconds and up to three and a half minutes.
“Within minutes of the breach occurring, our IT techs began an immediate shutdown and investigation.
“No other screen in our network was affected in any way, all continue to operate as scheduled.”
The billboard being located just down the road from Milton State School meant that the sexual display was shown to an indiscriminate audience of all ages. Goa has acknowledged this and has said it is horrified by the incident.
“We regret the offence or distress that this may have caused to members of the public who evidenced this transmission.
“We are particularly conscious that this may have included children and adolescents. As a family-owned business that has operated in Brisbane for in excess of 50 years, no manner or format of pornography is acceptable.”
At this stage, the hacker’s identity and motives have not been determined, with goa managing director Chris Tyquin having confirmed that the company had not received any threats.
“The police have been informed and are treating it as a serious matter.
“We retain video recordings which include imagery of individuals that may assist police in their investigations.
“Apart from this one-off incident, the rest of our internal transmission systems, including security systems, were not breached in any way.”
While goa has not explained what exactly caused the billboard to be intercepted, this is not the first instance of hackers showing porn on a digital billboard. In fact, it’s a known issue that plagues the industry.
In the case of a billboard in Michigan, USA being hacked to show pornographic material, two individuals physically broke into a building underneath the billboard and used a computer within to display pornography for 15 to 20 minutes.
In another instance that occurred in Jakarta, Indonesia, a 24-year-old IT worker who was stuck in traffic spotted the log-in details displayed on the billboard and broadcasted porn for 10 minutes.
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