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Palo Alto crosswalks hacked due to unchanged default passwords [1]

['Gail Sherman']

Date: 2026-01-05  

Last year, multiple Palo Alto crosswalks were hacked. A dozen of the city's voice-enabled crosswalks played less-than-flattering fake versions of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, instead of the usual recordings. At the time, the crosswalks' Bluetooth connection was considered the most likely route for the hack, but it turned out to be much dumber than that.

The Palo Alto Daily Post reports that, while Bluetooth was the entry point, a lapse in basic security practices enabled anyone with a cellphone to connect to and change the settings at the crosswalks. The California Department of Transportation, which maintains the signals, failed to change the default password on the devices.

Emails obtained by the Post revealed that the manufacturer of the affected signals reached out to Caltrans and advised them to change the devices' passwords from the default to a stronger one. Additional signals using the default password were found during the investigation into the hack. Hopefully, there isn't a Post-it with the new, stronger password at every intersection now.

Previously:

• Amazon used 'security' to sell Ring doorbells, then blamed customers when hackers broke into them

• Hackers compromised smart fish tank at casino

• Justice Dept. to charge 2 Russian spies and 2 criminal hackers with 2014 Yahoo breach of 500 million accounts

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