4 ms·

I agree, it'd be nice to know how much easier it is (if at all) to mount an tie in a computer to their car. They do make a good point: "But as they look at al

by watty 16y ago

I agree, it'd be nice to know how much easier it is (if at all) to mount an tie in a computer to their car. They do make a good point: "But as they look at all of the wireless and Internet-enabled systems the auto industry is dreaming up for tomorrow's cars, they see some serious areas for concern."

TeHCrAzY 16y ago
http://www.limitless.co.nz/ http://www.limitless.co.nz/ sells the cable + software for re-flashing a variety of ECU's. I think he makes the cables by hand (he also started offering a nifty GPS + flashing unit as well). It's impressive work. It's quite easy to play with (and also quite easy to physically damage your car if you don't know what you are doing). Having physical access to the car would make it impossible to stop: It's relatively easy to replace the ECU in a vehicle, which would be essentially impossible to notice (in my cars case, it's tucked in behind the glove box). Then you could have much wider levels of control over the vehicle than an ECU would generally provide, by using your own custom hardware. I find it highly unlikely that the ECU would be networked (so to speak) with the car entertainment system (wireless/internet etc).
jerf 16y ago
Hopefully, the wireless and Internet-enabled systems will be completely isolated from the CAN-bus. At first I hoped it would be air-gap isolated, but after I thought about it for a bit I realized that's not possible. In particular, one obvious application for the Internet is playing network MP3s to your car radio, which is also pretty intimately tied into the CAN-bus in modern designs. So while there may not be an "official" path from Internet->CAN-bus, it's one buffer overflow in the car radio away from working, probably. And what are the flerking odds that the car radio is implemented in anything other than (spit) C, which in the hands of embedded engineers who haven't had to think about security for decades pretty much guarantees buffer overflows will abound? And of course if we're going to implement remote condition monitoring in the style of OnStar, there may very well be direct Internet<->CAN-bus interconnects built right in. I'm sort of regretting having taken the time out to think about this. Now I'm scared.
- zenocon 16y ago
  Speaking from a little bit of experience in this area...these networks are often not isolated. It depends on the vehicle and network architecture, but there are valid business reasons for getting at the entire network through Wi-Fi. Buffer exploits in C aren't the issue. The issue is cracking the weak encryption scheme, and figuring out the unpublished sequence of CAN bits to send that do things like lock/unlock doors or change the powertrain calibrations. OEMs try to hold this info close to the vest for obvious reasons, but there is a large subculture out there reverse engineering it.
- NateLawson 16y ago
  This is exactly what the real problem is. Comments about cutting break cables being easier don't get this. Many cars are not air-gapping these two networks and a failure in any of the components that bridge the two can lead to remote attacks of this type. I would not buy a car that has Internet-anything in it.

by watty 16y ago

TeHCrAzY 16y ago

http://www.limitless.co.nz/ http://www.limitless.co.nz/ sells the cable + software for re-flashing a variety of ECU's. I think he makes the cables by hand (he also started offering a nifty GPS + flashing unit as well). It's impressive work. It's quite easy to play with (and also quite easy to physically damage your car if you don't know what you are doing). Having physical access to the car would make it impossible to stop: It's relatively easy to replace the ECU in a vehicle, which would be essentially impossible to notice (in my cars case, it's tucked in behind the glove box). Then you could have much wider levels of control over the vehicle than an ECU would generally provide, by using your own custom hardware. I find it highly unlikely that the ECU would be networked (so to speak) with the car entertainment system (wireless/internet etc).

jerf 16y ago

Hopefully, the wireless and Internet-enabled systems will be completely isolated from the CAN-bus. At first I hoped it would be air-gap isolated, but after I thought about it for a bit I realized that's not possible. In particular, one obvious application for the Internet is playing network MP3s to your car radio, which is also pretty intimately tied into the CAN-bus in modern designs. So while there may not be an "official" path from Internet->CAN-bus, it's one buffer overflow in the car radio away from working, probably. And what are the flerking odds that the car radio is implemented in anything other than (spit) C, which in the hands of embedded engineers who haven't had to think about security for decades pretty much guarantees buffer overflows will abound? And of course if we're going to implement remote condition monitoring in the style of OnStar, there may very well be direct Internet<->CAN-bus interconnects built right in. I'm sort of regretting having taken the time out to think about this. Now I'm scared.

zenocon 16y ago
Speaking from a little bit of experience in this area...these networks are often not isolated. It depends on the vehicle and network architecture, but there are valid business reasons for getting at the entire network through Wi-Fi. Buffer exploits in C aren't the issue. The issue is cracking the weak encryption scheme, and figuring out the unpublished sequence of CAN bits to send that do things like lock/unlock doors or change the powertrain calibrations. OEMs try to hold this info close to the vest for obvious reasons, but there is a large subculture out there reverse engineering it.
NateLawson 16y ago
This is exactly what the real problem is. Comments about cutting break cables being easier don't get this. Many cars are not air-gapping these two networks and a failure in any of the components that bridge the two can lead to remote attacks of this type. I would not buy a car that has Internet-anything in it.