Remote Control of a Car, With No Phone Or Network Connection Required 160
Albanach writes: Following on from this week's Wired report showing the remote control of a Jeep using a cell phone, security researchers claim to have achieved a similar result using just the car radio. Using off the shelf components to create a fake radio station, the researchers sent signals using the DAB digital radio standard used in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. After taking control of the car's entertainment system it was possible to gain control of vital car systems such as the brakes. In the wild, such an exploit could allow widespread simultaneous deployment of a hack affecting huge numbers of vehicles.
LOL at the touchscreen in the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Car infotainment systems can allow drivers to see vehicle status updates, play music and videos, view maps and in some cases run third-party apps" - and they also allow drivers to NOT SEE OTHER CARS, while they're trying to use a stupid touchscreen in a bloody CAR...
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I really do wish they went with side buttons instead of touch screens. You can memorize positions and even feel your way to the right button. Until cars have haptic feedback on their screens they should stick to buttons. I should be able to operate it blindly.
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I don't need my car stereo to tell me the name of the musician or song on a screen. The n
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I don't need my car stereo to tell me the name of the musician or song on a screen.
I need that much. I currently get by with a one-line segmented LCD. Would like to have at least two lines, so I'll probably end up with a touch screen in my future.
This is partly because I also use my radio for playing podcasts from USB.
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How many accidents in the last 5 years?
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One rear-end at a red light by someone who didn't see the "no turn on red" sign.
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What does that mean? You rear ended him, but it was his fault?
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It means he rear-ended me and that he was at fault.
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Rear ended by someone making an illegal right on red? I don't get it.
Anyhow, by focusing on driving I'm in my 4th decade of accident free driving, including a number of 'not at fault accidents' that I avoided via situational awareness.
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I was at the red light in front of them in the right turn lane. They thought I was turning and they punched the gas. It's not that hard to understand.
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Yep. It's not much different that texting. You have to look away, read, and then touch a UI.
Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is probably tied into the CAN bus to respond to nifty steering wheel buttons.. but indeed. wtf.
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It wouldn't be so bad if they would place a proxy between the critical systems and the infotainment such that the critical systems were effectively read only (so long as the proxy was a separate box that NEVER accepts commands from the infotainment side), but HEY, what's a few fatal brake failures when they can save 5 bucks?
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash has millions (maybe billions) of users and after 15 years, they still find 0-day security holes. There's no "just" about it.
Exactly (Score:2)
I wish I had a million mod points. Security is *hard*.
The essence of a secure system is one which doesn't connect to any systems which have a lower security threshold.
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It's hard to disagree with this statement, although we do not know all the details. Compare to computers—we have insecure OS's running insecure servers on insecure networks, and then people realized that maybe all this should be retrofitted with security without losing a single capability or backwards compatibility. That's definitely hard. On the other hand, we have had cars secure from RF-based attacks for a hundred years, and now suddenly they become insecure w
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The trusted source should be the auto service center. Even if you get a trusted over the air source, it should never be trusted unless the owner is involved and actively approves the transaction. Sure, flash a message on the screen first: "warning, the 432nd zero day flaw has been found on this system and an update is available", but don't install the patch without permission from the owner.
The sole reason they want this updates is because of a stupid entertainment system! Screw that, disallow updates ov
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Security is not that hard. What is making it hard comes from trying to keep security in a design that is actively fighting against security. Keeping things simple makes security simple. Trying to allow a system to do everything, including updating your OS over the air or accepting and executing arbitrary code that appears over the air, turns the security into a nightmare task that will never be completely finished.
The key concept is that convenience is the enemy of security, and vice versa. The two do n
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Because Flash doesn't keep things simple. They go out of their way to screw over the user by adding unsafe concept (not just unsafe features). If they make the program so that it can only do presentations then it's a safer product. But instead they want to write files to your computer, hook up to DLLs, allow random byte codes from the internet to control operations that can potentially be unsafe.
It's like the difference between using pure HTML 1.0 where you had nothing but markup and could only do a pres
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Vendor lockin. You used to be able to buy aftermarket radios for your car. If you have one of the new POSs you can't.
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They just have to be patched.
Wrong attitude about security, Patchy Patcherson.
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What does that have to do with anything? Unless you want your voice recognition system to be able to activate the brakes the two systems should be fully airgapped. Parallel networks, one secure, one insecure, are hardly a new idea.
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Speculation: It's all on one network so you can install updates using that single network. As the previous Wired article discussed, users don't install updates if it's inconvenient (via a USB stick). Imagine having separate networks with separate USB ports and separate system updates! Besides the added cost and complexity due to duplicated hardware, nobody would ever bother. But some updates probably *are* useful, for fuel efficiency and whatnot.
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1. The main engine computer and network should rarely, if ever, need to be updated, unless it's something like a vehicle recall. Putting a USB port in a somewhat obscure or hard to access place would be fine for this, as it would normally be done by a dealer or by someone who is very motivated and knows what they're doing.
2. The cosmetic functionality should be easily updated by anyone at anytime, as it's more likely to receive user inter
NSA (Score:2, Insightful)
Same reason why they leave backdoor in encryption mechanisms.
We used to think the reason was incompetence, post Snowden we know these vulnerabilities are by design.
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Well I can understand the need for the display to show critical content. I would love it if my entertainment display would give me the exact reason why the warning lights came on.
however what gets me is why is it a two way connection? That should be read only data. You should not be adjusting things from that system.
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, using the suggestion in the article, it might be possible to instruct the car to parallel park if this is operated using a touch screen through the "infotainment" system. Seems unlikely that such a system would operate any fundamental car functionality though.
Audio system is part of the engine (Score:2)
If you own an american muscle car, the only way you'll know your engine is powerful enough for your manly image is if they add engine sounds to the cabin. They *have* to have a link to the ECS of they won't know how much manliness to tell you you're creating with your throttle.
Consider the background of auto makers (Score:5, Interesting)
Why exactly is the entertainment system of a vehicle, devoloped by design to display "unknown" content, tied into critical systems? First airplanes and now cars. What the actual fuck are these people thinking?
I work in the auto industry running a company that manufactures electronic wiring products. I can tell you exactly what they were thinking.
Nothing. They weren't thinking about it at all.
Auto makers have never had to deal with security much beyond ignition and door locks and car alarms. The concept of hardening the internal system of a car against malicious hackers is really something they've never really had to deal. The fact that there are asshats out there who will do malicious things simply hasn't been an issue for them until now. It's more ignorance than incompetence. Their electronics experience is more embedded systems than consumer electronics and they've built their companies accordingly.
I do think it is dawning on them but its going to take some years before they get their house in order. It will require some significant organizational restructuring and changes in development and engineering. I think you'll likely see some hacking incidents and some sizable lawsuits along the way. They will almost certainly have to get handed some very expensive lessons before they get religion about doing security properly.
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It's more ignorance than incompetence.
No. Incompetence is ignorance when you can hire someone competent and aware. But that's not what they did. They hired incompetent, ignorant idiots.
Arm chair quarterbacking (Score:5, Insightful)
Incompetence is ignorance when you can hire someone competent and aware.
That is an argument from hindsight. It's easy to see the problem in the rear view mirror. How do you propose they go about hiring someone "competent and aware" when they don't know about the existence problem in the first place? It's REALLY easy to armchair quarterback this and it's pretty unfair. The real question is what they will do going forward because the leadership damn well ought to be aware of it now. If they continue with business as usual THEN it is fair to say they are incompetent.
They hired incompetent, ignorant idiots.
Untrue and unfair. The problem is that they hired good people people to do the wrong task because they didn't know any better. I assure you that the people they hired were by and large competent at what they were hired for. I work with many of these engineers. They aren't stupid. They aren't incompetent. They ARE naive about computer security and how to design systems with that in mind.
It's a problem they will likely deal with effectively in due time but there are going to be some painful lessons learned along the way. Companies that have made their money cutting metal don't become advanced IT operations overnight.
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How do you propose they go about hiring someone "competent and aware" when they don't know about the existence problem in the first place?
You ask an expert. If you're not smart enough to do that, then you're an idiot and you deserve to fail. And that's what the automakers are doing: they are failing at computing. Security is part of computing.
The problem is that they hired good people people to do the wrong task because they didn't know any better.
And they didn't know any better because they didn't consult the experts, and they didn't consult experts because they are idiots, who deserve to fail. Like I said.
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The task in front of them wasn't 'computing'. The task in front of them was 'automobile manufacture'.
They knew damned well that the task before them was computing, because they were talking about computers and computerization left and right. But then they forgot to actually do that correctly. I suspect some of them actually did consult experts, the experts told them how to do it right, and they said "that's expensive" and did it wrong. But I don't have any evidence for that, and the fallback position is that they didn't consult experts, and are just big idiots.
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And experts in security have been warning them repeatedly that something like this was inevitable for many years.
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That is an argument from hindsight. It's easy to see the problem in the rear view mirror. How do you propose they go about hiring someone "competent and aware" when they don't know about the existence problem in the first place?
There's one problem with your argument. The people who were ignored when they said that cars were going to be vulnerable to exploits just like every damn thing we connect to the internet is vulnerable.
To accept your argument, there has to be some modern education system where people can learn enough about digital electronics and programming, but have never heard about the internet.
And they are still at it. Chevy now not only has OnStar, but a lot of them are now 4G integrated. All perfectly safe, and u
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I don't think the idea that hackers might have excessive fun with a computer controlled system is such an obscure thought to have in the 21st century. Especially since they have been REPEATEDLY warned in public and in private about the risk for over a decade.
This wasn't just ignorance, it was WILLFUL ignorance.
Hey, look out for that piano! It's about to fall on your head!!! MOVE!!!...RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!
(5 seconds later) CRASH! Well, to be realistic, how could he possibly have anticipated a piano fa
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Re:Consider the background of auto makers (Score:5, Insightful)
If a carmaker builds a car that explodes in a normal accident, then they are negligent. But if they build a car that explodes when someone fires an RPG at it, I don't blame the automaker.
The kind of hack that takes control of a car and disables the brakes is not an accident. It is like someone cutting the brake lines. And we don't require car manufacturers to make brake lines out of triply reinforced kevlar and steel so that people can't maliciously cut through them, nor require automakers to wrap the car in fireproof material in case somebody douses it in gasoline and sets fire to it. They just need to be enough to make it through standard operating conditions, not outright attacks.
There will always be security holes as long as there is enough reason for someone to want to take control of a car. So although I think it is a good idea for carmakers to build better systems ("Mercedes Benz - the only luxury car that isn't affected by the ZeusMobile trojan!"), I think assigning liability in hindsight is a bit harsh. But some additional regulations that require some of the obvious best practices (air-gapped systems, etc) would also make sense.
Re:Consider the background of auto makers (Score:5, Insightful)
They just need to be enough to make it through standard operating conditions, not outright attacks.
As soon as you connect something to the Internet, "standard operating conditions" include outright attacks.
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"The kind of hack that takes control of a car and disables the brakes is not an accident. It is like someone cutting the brake lines. And we don't require car manufacturers to make brake lines out of triply reinforced kevlar and steel so that people can't maliciously cut through them, nor require automakers to wrap the car in fireproof material in case somebody douses it in gasoline and sets fire to it. They just need to be enough to make it through standard operating conditions, not outright attacks. "
I do
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Yes, but brake lines are needed, where as communication systems permitting external input are not needed. When vulnerabilities are created by add-on features that aren't truly necessary, but expose life safety and theft risks, that can be negligence. I hope out of this issue, that message is understood before lawmakers start mandating V2V communications.
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The question isn't what I think *should* be, it's what I think about what they already *did*. Of course I think that banks should have to encrypt data over their website. And I would support regulation that requires it, and enforcement of that regulation. But not holding them responsible for something that wasn't in the rules when they did it.
Further, there is a big difference between being able to sniff packets in the clear and reverse-engineering a car's ROM. How perfect does a car's system have to be be
Because of the deadliest force known to man (Score:3)
Beancounters.
Wasn't the beancounters (Score:5, Interesting)
Beancounters.
Nope. I'm both an engineer and an accountant and I'm in the industry. I can assure you that the beancounters had close to zero input on these design decisions and that is pretty much routine. Most of the beancounters aren't engineers and aren't really in a position to challenge the engineers on design decisions. These systems were designed by engineers and I can tell you with near 100% certainty that the design engineers had no background in security because I deal with engineers like this routinely in my day job. Basically the beancounters don't get involved much beyond helping to set the budget and keeping people to it but they rarely get involved in the mundane design decisions of exactly how the product will be built.
Let me give you an example from my own company about how little input the beancounters have. My company makes wire harnesses and one of our products goes into a series of SUVs from GM and is used across several brands. We make two versions that are identical except for one part. The reason we use two parts instead of one is because the engineers at Chevy couldn't be bothered to talk to the engineers at Buick to make a common hole size. This raised cost and added a part number for no reason at all. The beancounters didn't get involved and never said a word.
But it gets worse. The same product uses connectors on each end. The engineers could have used common, off-the-shelf, already-in-production connectors but instead they decided to custom design the connectors on both ends. As a result they more than doubled the unit cost of each connector and instead of having a part that could be purchased with zero lead time from any distributor, we have a 16 week lead time, continual part shortages and have to buy over 50,000 units at a time (we use about 1,000/day) to get the pricing we get. So we end up selling them the product for probably 30% more than was necessary because of stupid design decisions. The beancounters never said a word about any of this foolishness either.
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Even these systems that are not connected to the internet suffer the internet effect. How hard would it be to publicize an exploit like this in 1984?
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Why exactly is the entertainment system of a vehicle, devoloped by design to display "unknown" content, tied into critical systems? First airplanes and now cars. What the actual fuck are these people thinking?
As other people have noted, it's probably related to CAN bus integration.
I like CAN bus, but this sort of implementation reflects a problem across industries. Years ago, when engineers ran the show, you'd never connect mission critical networks to anything. Then slowly, as engineers lost cachet to the IT and Accounting teams, the arguments for separate networks got howled down over calls for efficiency and cost-cutting.
Engineers knew their networks were insecure - in part because of the reliance on in
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It's the same elsewhere. Idiots want their programs to do everything. If it's convenient, then do it, and only luddites would want it differently. Ie, Adobe Reader, a program that *reads*, keeps having to have security patches because that *reader* was changed to do complex crap that no one ever asked for above and beyond just presenting information. They could have left the format completely as a read-only format, lock down the byte codes to be safe, never even link in a function that writes to a file.
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PDF was not originally intened to create and edit files. It was presentation only, and it made sense in that format. There are other programs out there to create documents. If you are collaborating, then PDF isn't the right tool anyway, just send word or openoffice docs back and forth, and trust the person you are collaborating with to not stick in malware. PDF is very often used to read in documents from people you don't know, so that the documents are not to be trusted.
The old Acrobat Reader was prett
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The advantage of PDF was that it was supposed to be portable. You didn't need Word, or WordPerfect, or whatever. You didn't even need Acrobat Reader as long as you had another file that understood the format. Thus the idea of two formats: the incomprehensible and unstable one from Microsoft, and the documented one based on PostScript if you needed it to be more portable.
I do wish that the PDF readers were read only. And that Adobe Reader only did reading, since it's the free tool. If Adobe wanted an ad
He didn't prove any flaw (yet) (Score:5, Informative)
He believed an attack could be done via a DAB broadcast, but from the article, he doesn't seem to have tried on a real car.
That said, car companies do a lot of idiot stuff these days, like the trunk which opens automatically when you put your foot under the car and you are nearby. This is just a big gift for thieves, just wait for tourists with a car full of stuff to leave their car, stand in the vicinity and put your foot under the car when they leave but they are still near enough to allow the trunk to open...
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Did you even read the article?... He has proved the attack works in controlled environments where the DAB signal can't reach outside, on a car.
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Which car brands and models have these holes?
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I have a car with a fast key, though you have to push a button on the trunk. I'm gonna say your concern is unwarranted. The range of the fast key for the trunk sensor is very short, not more than 2 or 3 feet centered in the back of the trunk. There's simply no conceivable way a shady character could surreptitiously be that close without me noticing them.
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The MO of the thieves unlocking the cars with keyless entry FOBs is that they're using some kind of transmitter/amplifier [nytimes.com]. It basically acts like a man in the middle, rebroadcasting signals from the car and FOB at higher power to greatly increase the range.
It all boils down to a foolish decision by automakers that there was always a 100% correlation between signal strength and dis
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like the trunk which opens automatically when you put your foot under the car and you are nearby. This is just a big gift for thieves, just wait for tourists with a car full of stuff to leave their car, stand in the vicinity and put your foot under the car when they leave but they are still near enough to allow the trunk to open...
Awe, isn't that cute, you're talking about shit you know nothing about.
In order for that trunk to open, your key has to be within about 1/3rd of a meter from the trunk lock or it doesn't open, so if I'm close enough that you can get into the trunk that way, I'm also close enough to just beat your ass for trying, since you two are going to be well within my striking distance at that point. You'd be hard pressed to get your foot under there with me close enough because I'm going to be in between you and the
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Same for the doors, you have to be within about a foot of the door. You can't unlock the doors from the outside when the key is on the inside. You can't unlock or open any of the doors with the key at or more than a meter away from the door you're trying to unlock.
Except there was an article a few weeks ago about crooks breaking into cars by using a directional antenna to pick up the signal from your key and retransmit it to the car.
This is why the IOT will be a clusterfuck (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF are the ass clowns who produce this shit thinking ? Have they been in a cave for the last 30 years ?
All these so called "smart devices" seem to have been programmed by 5 year old children who have never considered that malicious people might try to crack/exploit their systems.
10 minutes after the "Internet Of Things" is in place the world is going to descend into chaos as every script kiddie on the planet starts fucking around with stuff and exploiting every single one of the devices. Probably just by using the default admin password which will be printed on the box.
Honestly I can't believe how truly abysmal the state of most modern programming is. Piss poor code running on umpteen frameworks (mostly just adding bloat) and every bit of it seemingly written without the FIRST THOUGHT to security. Fucking fifth rate crap the lot of it.
You can take all your smart TVs, smart cars, smart fridges etc. and stick them right up your arse. None of this shit is coming into my house ever. Morons....
potentially (Score:5, Interesting)
"Because infotainment systems processed DAB data to display text and pictures on car dashboard screens, he said, an attacker could send code that would let them take over the system.
Once an infotainment system had been compromised, he said, an attacker could potentially use it as a way to control more critical systems, including steering and braking."
Well, yeah.
Normally it's not that easy. Sure, the car stereo sits on a can bus with nice information (ACC, backing signals to turn on the back camera, speed information so the volume can be automatically adjusted, etc). But it's not on the vital CAN bus (at least not on most cars).
But yes, it's an entrance point. So is the 3g/wifi receiver in the stereo, or the bluetooth connection to the handsfree that it can do.
But you would have to:
1. crack an entrance point to the stereo (any of the above)
2. control the stereo CAN transmitter (if it has one)
3. using that CAN to crack an entrance point to another system that talks to a vital CAN bus
4. control that system enough to transmit CAN on the vital bus
5. and then use this system to send bad messages to brakes or steering
and all cars use different firmware with different security holes and different CPUs.
But with enough research you could probably crack a specific vulnerable car model.
Cracking modern airplanes seems easier, actually.
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"all cars use different firmware with different security holes and different CPUs. But with enough research you could probably crack a specific vulnerable car model."
Like a Mercedes C250 coup for example.
http://www.occupy.com/article/exclusive-who-killed-michael-hastings [occupy.com]
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Correct.
Although there's lots of easier methods if you have access to the physical car.
(Just like breaking a bluetooth lock is possible, but it's also possible to use a normal untraceable chainsaw on the wall next to the door.)
(Also: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I'm personally more worried about bugs in cars than security holes.)
Re: potentially (Score:1)
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
That is the dumbest saying ever. The opposite would be much better advice.
Re: potentially (Score:3, Insightful)
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It might be in your world. I prefer not to assume the world is stupid, but not inherently malignant. I find it easier to live with.
In some cases the stupidity leads to malignancy (NSA, TSA), even though it's well-intended.
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I'm personally more worried about bugs in cars than security holes.
And rodents, they can be pretty bad too.
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And bugs in the rodent-counter system.
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On top of this why would anyone want to do this?
If their goal is to try to kill you in a convoluted way they could just climb under your car with a set of pliers and cut through a couple of your brake lines.
If their goal is to break into your car they can smash a window.
If their goal is to steal your car they can do this with a flat bed truck, or just break into your house and steal the keys when you are asleep.
There are endless ways people can cause havoc in our modern world. Fortunately a surprisingly lar
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Who would want to do this? Security researchers. Why? Because press releases like these are how they get research funding to continue their work.
Now, in a movie-theater mentality, I can think of reasons to do this beyond stealing a car. For example, if I can cause a 30 car pileup on a major highway, that'll draw attention and resources away from the financial district, making it easier for me to rob.
In this case, it has the added benefit of being blind-broadcast. Unlike the Miller/Valasek attack, which is I
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Most PCMs will take a standard OBD-II reset command without login, even while the vehicle is in motion. Use your own imagination as to what happens when the PCM reboots while the vehicle is in motion.
Re:potentially (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no. You can clear codes but it's not a hard reset.
Um, no. That's not what I'm talking about. I can see why you didn't log in: You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and don't want anyone to associate that fact with your identity. But if you had been following Slashdot for more than a couple days, you'd have seen that we discussed here in the past in one of these OBD-II discussions that researchers had presented at DEFCON some various facts... including that most PCMs will take a reset (not a clear codes, an actual reboot request) without a login, and they will do it when the vehicle is in motion.
That's why every manufacturer has a procedure that includes disconnecting a battery terminal to reset the computer.
You really think that Bosch or Hitachi or whoever is making your PCM actually cycles power to them during programming? Why would they do that? They simply implement an OBD-II command which will reset the PCM in software, so they don't have to do that shit. Then they don't take it out, and most of them don't bother to set a password. That will be changing as they wake up to the idea that security is a thing and that they will be held financially responsible when they fail at it.
Anyway, I can't find a discussion where we explicitly discussed this here on Slashdot, although I remember participating, but here is a PDF link from 2010 [autosec.org] (which I found on hackaday) where it is revealed that simple fuzz testing was enough to find two ways to shut down the vehicle while in motion, and one way to disable the vehicle such that it would not function until reset; or to lock individual brakes or sets of brakes, all without login.
The truth is that the automotive industry has willfully created this situation by simply pretending that there isn't even a security issue at play, and refusing to hire or even consult the experts in the field. Now they are caught flat-footed and people are pretending that this is reasonable. Car companies have been outright bragging about computerization all along. Now it's time to see that they've actually been doing it wrong the whole time.
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"Because infotainment systems processed DAB data to display text and pictures on car dashboard screens, he said, an attacker could send code that would let them take over the system.
Once an infotainment system had been compromised, he said, an attacker could potentially use it as a way to control more critical systems, including steering and braking."
Well, yeah.
Normally it's not that easy. Sure, the car stereo sits on a can bus with nice information (ACC, backing signals to turn on the back camera, speed information so the volume can be automatically adjusted, etc). But it's not on the vital CAN bus (at least not on most cars).
But yes, it's an entrance point. So is the 3g/wifi receiver in the stereo, or the bluetooth connection to the handsfree that it can do.
But you would have to:
1. crack an entrance point to the stereo (any of the above) 2. control the stereo CAN transmitter (if it has one) 3. using that CAN to crack an entrance point to another system that talks to a vital CAN bus 4. control that system enough to transmit CAN on the vital bus 5. and then use this system to send bad messages to brakes or steering
and all cars use different firmware with different security holes and different CPUs. But with enough research you could probably crack a specific vulnerable car model.
Cracking modern airplanes seems easier, actually.
That settles it then, I am not going to root my Range Rover.
i did this back in 1988 (Score:2)
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That was you???
Damn you sir! Damn you!!!
billions of pounds (Score:2)
The UK's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has responded by saying that car companies "invest billions of pounds to keep vehicles secure as possible"
s/invest/waste/
oh wait...
s/possible/crap/
Car electronics are safe like work IT systems (Score:5, Interesting)
Car electronics are safe like work IT systems are safe. No one competent would design the systems with a shared set of credentials, with an easily cracked master control system, with low security systems granted bus access and with privileged commands going over the common bus without protection, because we "trust the people we work with".
Unfortunately, this is rarely completely true in a large IT environment. There's often a set of vulnerabilities, which can be closed but require time and resources not allocated in the current quarter or even ever enabled. They're checked off on the security checklist, but the checklist is crafted to avoid the real problems, or personnel simply lie outright: this is at the core of many companies compliance with the FIPS guidelines. Those kinds of gaps help pay my salary: I often help close them and reduce the danger of them while they're being fixed.
For car systems, there are various "buses" in use now. A casual search shows more than 10 distinct "vehicle bus" standards in use, and trying to secure and reliably use all of them consistently and safely _in terms of security_ is barely feasible, much less likely in the high urgency car market. The components also have to be extremely robust, low quiescent power, and not too expensive per unit, which adds other limitations and slows closing known security or newly discovered security holes.
So I'm afraid that real security risks of the systems are to be expected. And they're quite unlikely to be fixed quickly when discovered, because it could involve replacing core components of the system and causing a _much_ higher rate of upgrade induced failures.
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For car systems, there are various "buses" in use now. A casual search shows more than 10 distinct "vehicle bus" standards in use, and trying to secure and reliably use all of them consistently and safely _in terms of security_ is barely feasible, much less likely in the high urgency car market.
At least four of those are OBD-II standards, and while they have different physical link layers, and have different low-level communications protocol, they all speak the same high-level protocol: OBD-II. OBD-II actually does have some notion of security, but it's not much of one, and most PCMs will take a reset command at any time — without a login command, and even if the vehicle is moving.
There's no public key-based crypto on OBD-II either, so any module can spoof messages coming from any other modu
Twaddle (Score:2)
The summary here on /. reads
"After taking control of the car's entertainment system it was possible to gain control of vital car systems such as the brakes"
Actually reading the article you find nothing of the sort happened. The article merely states
"Once an infotainment system had been compromised, he said, an attacker could potentially use it as a way to control more critical systems, including steering and braking."
This hack consisted solely of causing text like "LOLZ I RULZ" appear on the radio display.
T
Coming Soon (Score:1)
Yeah Bullcrap. (Score:2)
Details or it's fake. Too many of these claims lately have nothing, not even a glimmer of details to prove they did anything, and all the demos are with a car that has been prepped for the demonstration.
Even the Jeep one was a very scripted demo with a LOT of work done before hand to the vehicle. A lot of the ECM programming forums were calling shenanigans on the claims and the reporting was so bad that it is not clear that the car did not have something fitted to make it possible.
These guys need to rele
Did you know (Score:2)
that radio controlled vehicles were invented before cellphones, or even before the internet
Hastings? (Score:2)
http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/07/... [whowhatwhy.org]
Our original report described anomalies of the crash and surrounding events that suggest cutting-edge foul playâ"that an external hacker could have taken control of Hastingsâ(TM)s car in order to kill him. If this sounds too futuristic, a series of recent technical revelations has proven that âoecar hackingâ is entirely possible. The latest just appeared this week.
Harry, the DA wants to talk to you ... (Score:2)
about your ex-wife's car crash. "Sir, I assure you I was no where near my wife at the time of the crash. I was in a bar on 3rd street with friends."
I hope someone does it (Score:2)
Told you so. (Score:2)
Don't computerize the simple mechanical parts of a car. Just DON'T. You're collective playlists aren't worth the inevitable police and attacker control and surveillance of our cars.
No, you and you, you can't outsmart them. You can't be God King of Koding and Do It Right. There is always a way, if you permit freaking Turning machines to control your vehicle, for someone to take control.
A machine, a successful, elegant device that occupies the lowest possible fail state, is one that has as few moving parts as
old stuff (Score:2)
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One Big Ad orgy is it.
No ads on the BBC, ever. Or at least until the current Government is done with commercialising it.
That holds in this country, however, content from the BBC website is ad-ridden when viewed from outside UK.
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Re:I Don't Listen to Radio (Score:4, Informative)
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Fuck sake slashdot in all these years of butchering the site you can't add an edit feature?
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