Aurora locks down Telstra SIMs after huge net bill

By Ry Crozier on May 3, 2011 11:57 AM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Woman imprisoned.

Aurora Energy has locked down a number of NextG SIM cards in trial smart meters after one was removed and used to run up a $193,000 internet bill.

The Mercury reported today that a 33-year-old woman pleaded guilty in Tasmania's Supreme Court to charges including computer-related fraud.

According to the report, the woman told Police she had been given the SIM card by a person she met on the internet.

She reportedly used the SIM to downloaded films and make calls. She was sentenced to 18 months jail – part suspended – and ordered to repay Aurora some $193,187.43.

An Aurora spokesman told iTnews that the utility had "become aware of an issue with communications equipment on a limited number of meters" through an audit process.

"We have worked with Telstra to address the issues and lock off the SIM cards that were affected," the spokesman said.

The spokesman could not reveal further details about the extent of the trial.

Tasmania Police has charged two other people in relation to the case.

Aurora locks down Telstra SIMs after huge net bill

9 comments in this discussion

"why did the sim even have internet access? most applications of this sort use a vpn"

By packet

Tags

aurora, energy, telstra, sim, nextg, smart, meter, tasmania, trial, internet, bill

Tas Police lay more charges over Aurora net bill

Rogue beer fridge caught by Telstra 'robot'

Court finds in Kogan Mobile's favour

Kogan sues ispONE

Breaking Stories

Bendigo Bank readies mobile payments scheme

NBN Co could miss revised June fibre targets

Tablets conquer Australia-NZ market: analysts

GE partners with AWS for big data project

Wall Street to simulate cyber attack

Readers of this article also read...

Comments: 9

BaysNet May 3, 2011 3:01 PM	Here we all were dilligently securing the SCADA metering network from being hacked and low and behold look what happened the SCADA network security reported tampering but no need to worry we are secure just the sim card being used to siphon off data and money. Very ingenious! SCADA Security audits just so much more than a control system IT security audit isn't it.
dubious May 3, 2011 3:10 PM	Regardless of the Utility and the complexity of a auditing and data mining coming from your SCADA application, how about using hardware just ever so slightly different physical config to a bog-standard SIM card in your smart meters guys? Until then, you've got telco's electricity and water utilities rolling out hundreds of thousands of SIMS that can be plugged straight into devices they were not intended for use in.
umbria May 3, 2011 4:25 PM	Cool story. Next, maybe they could roll out classic UK-style coin-operated electricity meters with a credit card swipe? What could possibly go wrong?
M1-A2 May 3, 2011 8:05 PM	Funny, another example of a good idea not tested for misuse or being monitored. I see this a lot now, when you try to put something in with the primary focus of saving money, people won't spend money doing an end to end risk management on all the components of the solution. I could do a lot of black hat thinking and risk management for $193K, but we are a dying breed.
PeterA May 3, 2011 11:33 PM	Plan: Call Telstra ; That wont work. Test: Roaming, can Sim work overseas? At Airports? Can Sim work for small epayments, like parking meters? Can send bulk SMS'es; What happens if someone 'Tops' it up or ports the number back and forth, or clones the chip - or worse, or uses during 'free chat' times. All adds up to deeply flawed.
Robert_9422 May 4, 2011 3:40 PM	How do you rack up $193K by just downloading movies and making calls?
rycrozier May 4, 2011 4:38 PM	Guess it depends how the card was set up. It's an m2m application, so I doubt it had consumer call/data rates applied to it. The excess charges on data could be quite high by default - Aurora would have known they'd never hit those limits using a smart meter. Plus add the cost of buying those movie titles outright from the internet.
Ace May 4, 2011 4:50 PM	That's easy @Robert_9422, just sign up for a Telstra Limitless for Life* plan! * Limited to 1 hour, after which costs are $60 per second. ps: This may not be true.
packet May 5, 2011 7:37 AM	why did the sim even have internet access? most applications of this sort use a vpn