The passwords for the signal system of the control room at the Waterloo rail station in London were disclosed during a TV documentary.

We cannot think of lock down the house if we leave the keys in the lock outside, something of similar occurred recently to at French network TV5Monde.

Following the successful attack against the network of the TV French Channel TV5Monde, law enforcement and French Intelligence started to investigate the attack chain. One of the hyphotesis formulated by the investigators on the possible ways hackers obtained credentials for systems at TV French Channel TV5Monde is the view of an interview that accidentally revealed the precious information. While a TV5Monde reporter was filming David Delos in front of a staffer’s desk, it was visible in the background a paper reporting a list of usernames and passwords.

Another interview, another possible password disclosure … this time during a BBC documentary on Wednesday night was disclosed alleged passwords for systems at one of the principal rail stations in London, the Waterloo station.

The credentials were attached to the top of a controller’s monitor used at the rail station, the passwords in the vicinity of the minute 44th minute mark in the documentary Nick and Margaret: The Trouble With our Trains.

The passwords are stucked to a monitor and are visible during a scene where the two business experts went into the control room at the rail station Waterloo in London.

‪The above image shows a workstation on a signaller’s control desk‬ that is running a software used to control rail traffic at the Waterloo station‬. ‪



The complete documentary, starring Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford, is available via YouTube.

Unfortunately, similar incidents are quite common, I suggest you to give a look to the blog post titled “Nine ways not to share a password” to understand how many cases have accidentally exposed users’ credentials through broadcasters.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – rail station Waterloo, passwords)

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