> The problem the article talks about occurs when the OEM "forgets" to turn off the UART (either in software or just by breaking the pins during manufacturing).

> The problem the article talks about occurs when the OEM "forgets" to turn off the UART (either in software or just by breaking the pins during manufacturing). Did you read the article? He's not hacking commercial/industrial devices like gas pumps by driving to a gas station and using a USB-serial adapter to physically attach a laptop or smartphone. Rather, the owners of the gas pumps legitimately attached a serial-to-Ethernet translator themselves to allow applications on their TCP/IP network to control the gas pump hardware. But they didn't secure the connection with an effective firewall or authentication requirement, so now not just the legitimate application, but anyone on the public Internet, can send commands to the pump.