Presentation Material
AI Generated Summary
The talk examines systemic security and design flaws in India’s vehicle registration and traffic enforcement systems, focusing on High Security Registration Plates (HSRP) and automated challan (fine) portals. The core argument is that these systems were implemented with promises of security and standardization but suffer from critically weak authentication and data handling practices, effectively making sensitive vehicle and owner data publicly accessible.
Key findings include the ability to order HSRP plates for any vehicle using only the last five digits of the engine number and a mobile number, with no KYC or documentation required. Similarly, traffic violation portals often allow querying and paying fines using only a vehicle or driving license number, enabling invoice harvesting and social engineering. Decentralized, non-standard city-level portals create inconsistent data, making it impossible for used car buyers to verify a vehicle’s fine history nationally. The automated challan system is vulnerable to false positives due to poor OCR accuracy on license plates, and physical HSRP plates are easily tampered with or removed to evade detection.
Practical implications are severe: identity theft, fraudulent fine generation, and social engineering attacks are trivial. Innocent vehicle owners are penalized for violations they did not commit, while actual offenders evade detection by tampering with plates. The talk concludes that the focus must shift from purely digital enforcement to verifying physical achievement parameters (e.g., body camera evidence with tamper-proof metadata), implementing proper access control, and treating vehicle identifiers as sensitive data rather than public information. The lack of a unified, secure national portal exacerbates these issues, leaving a fragmented attack surface.