Risky Business #129 -- Smart meters a stupid idea?

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This week's podcast is hosted by Vigabyte virtual hosting but sponsored by Check Point.

On this week's show we're taking a look at smart metering. It's all the rage these days -- it will usher in an era of automated billing for electricity, gas and water as well as letting the utilities companies do all sorts of intelligent grid management stuff. Utilities across Australia and indeed throughout the world are rolling this technology out as we speak.

But as you'll hear, there are opposing views on whether or not this stuff is ready for roll out.

Could a smart meter worm that can shut down whole cities be on the horizon? It sounds a bit extreme, but that's one concern Professor Bart Jacobs of Radboud University in the Netherlands highlights. We'll hear from him later.

We'll also hear from Logica's smart metering security expert Karl Dawson. He has extensive experience working with utilities on this sort of thing and says it can be done securely, if it's done right and monitored properly.

In this week's sponsor interview we'll be chatting with Steve MacDonald from Check Point. He's Check Point's engineering services manager here in Australia which means he spends a lot of time with big, big companies dealing with their issues. This week we're chatting to Steve about some of the more idiotic things he's seen customers do. Allow ANY blanket firewall rules anyone?