When Highways Go Digital: Securing I-75’s Emerging Traffic Control Infrastructure

Hook: Digital Highways, Real-World Risks

Georgia’s announcement of a $1.8B I-75 expansion is a clear signal: transportation agencies are accelerating large-scale digitization of highways and traffic control. For technology teams tasked with delivering these systems, the payoff—improved throughput, tolling efficiency, and safety—arrives with unfamiliar and urgent risks: operational technology (OT) attack surfaces, fragile contractor supply chains, and insecure sensor-to-cloud pipelines. If your next project includes ITS, SCATS, or SCADA components for I-75 or similar corridors, this guide tells you what to harden first, how to contract for security, and exactly what to do if the signal goes dark.

Topline (Most Important First)

Major highway investments like the proposed I-75 program are now IT projects as much as civil works. Modern traffic management depends on distributed sensors, edge compute, cloud analytics, and third-party integrations—each layer is a threat vector. Your immediate priorities are:

• Inventory and segmentation: Know every sensor, camera, PLC and cloud service, then segment OT from enterprise networks.
• Supply-chain controls: Require SBOMs, firmware provenance, and contractual security SLAs from prime contractors and vendors.
• Secure telemetry: Enforce mutual TLS, device identity, secure boot and signed OTA updates across the sensor-to-cloud pipeline.
• Incident playbooks: Prepare OT-aware IR runbooks that map to traffic-safety priorities and regulatory reporting.

Why This Matters Now (2025–2026 Context)

During late 2025 and into 2026, state DOTs accelerated ITS modernization to support tolling, reversible lanes, and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) services. Concurrently, ransomware groups and supply-chain attackers shifted focus toward OT and critical infrastructure—exposing limitations in traditional IT-only defenses. Regulators and funders now expect demonstrable cybersecurity risk management on projects that receive federal or state dollars. If you’re delivering or operating I-75’s new lanes, you must meet OT-specific standards (for example IEC 62443, NIST SP 800-82) and embed security into procurement and deployment lifecycles.

Realistic Threat Scenarios for I-75 Infrastructure

• Adversary tampers with reversible-lane control logic via exposed PLC interfaces, causing lane reversals to be incorrectly signaled at rush hour.
• Compromised CCTV feeds or edge AI are used to mask an incident, delaying emergency response.
• Supply-chain insertion of vulnerable firmware in tolling kiosks leads to theft of payment data and reputational harm.
• Telemetry floods or spoofed sensor data cause false congestion alerts, triggering manual overrides and human error.

“When highways go digital, the attacker’s playground extends from the roadside cabinet to the cloud tenant.”

Practical How-To: Secure the I-75 ITS Stack Before Deployment

Below is a prioritized checklist organized by timeline and impact—designed for program managers, engineers, and security teams who will design, build, or operate I-75 ITS components.

Immediate (0–30 days): Program-level controls

1. Create an Asset & Risk Registry: Record every device class (traffic controllers, cameras, WIM sensors, DSRC/5G roadside units), firmware versions, ownership, and network connectivity. Use automated discovery where practical and validate with manual site walks.
2. Enforce Vendor Security Clauses: Amend RFPs and contracts to require SBOMs, firmware signing, 90-day vulnerability SLAs, remote update security (signed OTA), and right-to-audit clauses.
3. Baseline Network Architecture: Define a segmented network: field devices → OT DMZ/edge → SCADA/SCATS controllers → enterprise/business systems → cloud. Avoid flat networks.
4. Deploy PKI & Device Identity: Issue certificates for devices and gateways from a centralized PKI. Block connections from devices without valid, non-expired certs.

Short-term (30–90 days): Technical hardening

1. Secure Protocols: Replace or wrap insecure protocols (e.g., legacy NTCIP over UDP) with secure transports—mutual TLS, VPNs, or OPC UA where applicable.
2. Enable Secure Boot and Signed Firmware: Require hardware root of trust or TPM-based attestation on traffic controllers and gateways. Reject devices that don’t support signed firmware.
3. Edge Gateways as Security Enforcers: Place hardened edge gateways at site cabinets to do TLS termination, certificate validation, local anomaly detection, and fail-safe behaviors.
4. Logging & Monitoring: Centralize OT logs into an OT-aware SIEM/XDR; create dashboards for device health, unusual configuration changes, and telemetry anomalies.

Medium-term (3–12 months): Process & testing

1. Threat Modeling & Red Teaming: Conduct OT-specific threat models for lane control logic and tolling payment flows. Schedule penetration tests and red-team exercises against representative field setups.
2. Patch & Vulnerability Program: Define a risk-based patch policy for field devices and controllers, with test staging, rollback capability, and emergency out-of-band patch paths.
3. Supply-Chain Verification: Require vendors to provide component provenance, test certificates, and third-party attestation that firmware was produced under secure practices.

Long-term (12–24 months): Operational resilience

1. Zero Trust for OT: Implement least-privilege access, just-in-time admin sessions, and micro-segmentation for critical controllers and cloud services.
2. Continuous Validation: Automate device configuration drift detection, firmware integrity checks, and telemetry-model validation to detect sensor spoofing.
3. Resilience Engineering: Build manual failover procedures, local logic for safe-mode operation, and drills for extended cloud outages.

Supply-Chain Risk Management: Contracts, SBOMs, and Provenance

Large highway programs are executed through prime contractors and deep subcontractor chains. Your legal team, procurement leads, and technical architects must enforce concrete measures during bidding and acceptance:

• SBOM Requirement: Require complete SBOMs for software and firmware at delivery. Treat refusal to provide SBOMs as a material non-conformance.
• Firmware Signing & Attestation: Require build attestations and cryptographic signing of firmware images; validate signatures as part of acceptance testing.
• Supply-Chain Transparency: Oblige disclosure of critical subcomponent suppliers and allow spot inspections or third-party audits for high-risk components.
• Vulnerability Disclosure & Patch SLA: Contractual SLAs for zero-day notification, triage timelines, and prioritized patch delivery (e.g., emergency patch within 7 days for high severity).
• Insurance & Liability: Include indemnities and cyber insurance minimums for contractors handling payment, tolling, or personally identifiable information.

Hardening the Sensor-to-Cloud Pipeline: Technical Patterns

Sensor data—traffic counts, lane occupancy, CCTV—flows from roadside assets to cloud analytics. That pipeline must be defensible at each hop:

Edge Layer

• Harden OS images and lock down local admin consoles. Use signed configuration profiles and immutable infrastructure practices where possible.
• Enable secure boot, measured boot and TPM/secure enclave to protect device keys.
• Limit local physical ports and use tamper-evident seals; add sensors for physical tamper detection.

Gateway & Local Aggregation

• Gateways should perform mutual TLS with cloud endpoints, validate device certificates, and throttle/aggregate telemetry to reduce attack surface.
• Implement protocol translation in the gateway with strict schema validation to guard against malformed payloads or injection attacks.
• Run local anomaly detection models that can trigger graceful failover behaviors (e.g., freeze lane logic to safe state).

Transport & Cloud

• Encrypt data in transit and at rest. Use TLS 1.3 with mutual authentication for device-to-cloud connections.
• Authenticate and authorize APIs with short-lived tokens, OAuth 2.0 with mTLS, or a cloud-native IAM with role-based access.
• Implement end-to-end observability: correlate device telemetry with network flows and control-plane logs for forensics.

Operational Playbooks: Incident Detection to Recovery

An ITS incident affects both safety and reputation. Your response playbook must prioritize human safety and maintain evidentiary integrity.

Detection & Triage (0–1 hour)

• Alerts: Unusual PLC command sequences, invalid certificate usage, sudden telemetry gaps, or unexpected lane-state changes.
• Immediate action: Isolate affected segments at network level and invoke local safe-mode logic on controllers to preserve traffic safety.
• Stakeholders: Notify DOT control center, ICS/OT security lead, vendor on-call, and legal/comms.

Containment & Evidence (1–24 hours)

• Network containment: Block north/south egress for compromised devices, preserve forensic images, and snapshot gateway configurations.
• Evidence preservation: Follow chain-of-custody for device storage, collect logs, and export SIEM timelines.
• Public safety: Deploy manual traffic control if automated signs or signals are unreliable.

Eradication & Recovery (24–72 hours)

• Validate and apply signed firmware or configuration rollbacks from secure storage.
• Rebuild compromised gateways from known-good images; reissue device certificates if necessary.
• Bring systems back into segmented operation; monitor for re-infection with increased telemetry fidelity.

Post-Incident & Regulatory (3–30 days)

• Conduct root-cause analysis and update threat models and acceptance tests.
• Notify regulators and affected parties as required under state and federal rules; prepare transparent public communications to reduce reputational damage.
• Incorporate lessons learned into future procurement and technical controls.

KPIs & Governance: Measuring Your Security Posture

Set measurable goals and report them to program leadership and procurement committees:

• MTTD / MTTR for OT incidents
• % of field devices with signed firmware
• SBOM coverage across deployed assets
• Patch latency for critical vulnerabilities
• Third-party risk score for each contractor

Case Study: Hypothetical I-75 Reversible Lane Rollout

Imagine a reversible-lane system where lane direction is decided by a central SCATS-like controller using speed and density sensors. Security measures we’d require before green-lighting live traffic:

• Threat model showing the business impact of a false direction-change command (safety-critical).
• Hardware root-of-trust on lane controllers and signed control logic binaries.
• Local mechanical interlocks and fail-safe signage that default to closed/override state on loss of trusted commands.
• Penetration testing that includes attempted PLC command injections and certificate forgery simulations.
• Contract terms that require immediate firmware hotfixes and a vendor-managed incident bridge with DOT operations.

Advanced Strategies & Future-Proofing (2026 and Beyond)

As ITS and V2I adoption grows through 2026 and beyond, program teams should invest in forward-looking controls:

• Composable Security: Treat security as modular services—device identity, telemetry validation, and anomaly detection—as reusable building blocks across corridors.
• Federated Identity & Authorization: Standardize on federated IAM so multiple agencies and contractors can interoperate securely.
• Digital Twins & Simulation: Use digital twins of traffic systems to test security updates and emergency scenarios before pushing to production.
• Hardware Provenance: Push for cryptographic supply-chain attestation standards for critical roadside hardware.

Checklist: Minimum Requirements Before Any ITS Deployments on I-75

• Complete device inventory and SBOMs for all suppliers
• PKI-based device identity and mutual TLS from edge to cloud
• Signed firmware with secure OTA and rollback capability
• Network segmentation and OT DMZ architecture
• Incident response playbooks with traffic-safety priorities
• Contractual SLAs for vulnerability disclosure, patching, and right-to-audit
• OT-aware logging and continuous monitoring
• Pen-testing and red-team results accepted as part of commissioning

Final Recommendations: Program-Level Actions to Start This Week

1. Update RFP templates to include SBOM, firmware signing, and security SLAs.
2. Launch an asset discovery audit for any in-flight ITS projects on I-75.
3. Stand up an OT incident response tabletop with procurement, operations, legal, and the prime contractor.
4. Require demonstration of secure boot and signed OTA during factory acceptance testing.

Conclusion & Call to Action

Georgia’s $1.8B I-75 investment represents an opportunity to build a modern, resilient corridor—but only if cybersecurity is treated as a first-class design requirement. The risk is not theoretical: insecure devices, opaque supply chains, and untested sensor-to-cloud pipelines will turn traffic-management into an attack surface with real human consequences. Start with inventory, contractually enforce supply-chain security, and harden the sensor-to-cloud path with PKI, signed firmware, and segmented architectures.

Need a ready-to-run OT security playbook tailored to highway ITS? Contact incidents.biz for a security workshop, procurement hardening template, or an OT red-team exercise for your I-75 program. Don’t let digital lanes become digital liabilities—secure them before they carry 100,000 vehicles a day.

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