Brisbane at risk of gridlock at hands of hackers due to serious flaws in traffic management system Serious flaws in Brisbane's traffic management system has raised concerns about vulnerability to hackers, and the risk of massive congestion for motorists. BRISBANE could be plunged into gridlock at the click of a mouse because of the vulnerability of computerised traffic management systems. A report by the Queensland Audit Office tabled in State Parliament this week identified serious flaws in the "intelligent transport system" (ITS) co-run by Transport and Main Roads and Brisbane City Council. CBD to become Fortresss Brisbane for G20 The QAO found the system was not secure and was easily hacked by investigators in a three-week period. "If the systems were specifically targeted, hackers could access the system and potentially cause traffic congestion, public inconvenience and affect emergency response times," said the report. Such attacks could also cause appreciable economic consequences in terms of lost productivity. It said the risk would be particularly heightened at next year's G20 summit and even during the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Strip searches approved in police powers boost "It is therefore critical that processes are in place to recover ITS quickly from a security incident or disaster," the report said. The report pointed to a ``general lack of staff awareness" regarding security risks - particularly how to defend against ``social engineering" techniques. These included gaining entry to a restricted area by simply following a staff member, or obtaining usernames and passwords by pretending to be a trustworthy person via email. Staff were lax in logging and reviewing potential security breaches and the automatic systems for detecting intrusions were sparsely implemented, the report found. In addition, the policies surrounding which staff had access were found to be flawed, with nearly one in five accounts belonging to ex-employees. Both Transport and Main Roads and Brisbane City Council, which were shown the report before it was published, said they had begun improving security measures. BCC Chief Executive Officer Colin Jensen said in a letter to the audit office that ``comprehensive risk assessments" had been completed. ``Further, the application of controls to mitigate the various risks identified are in progress, as well as other improvement actions," said Mr Jensen.