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To update 10th-gen Honda Civics, Honda ships updates on specially-formatted USB drives. They're essentially Android 4.2.2rc1-era recovery packages with some Hon
by librick 4mo ago
To update 10th-gen Honda Civics, Honda ships updates on specially-formatted USB drives. They're essentially Android 4.2.2rc1-era recovery packages with some Honda-added version checks (which can be spoofed). The packages are signed with the publicly-known AOSP test key, so with physical access to the front USB port you can sign and flash your own package for arbitrary code execution on the headunit. This doesn't require root/su. I've run it end-to-end on my own 2021 Civic and separately confirmed an official EU update file carries the AOSP test-key signature. Tooling and writeup in the post.
- Alive-in-2025 4mo agoThanks so much for your analysis. This kind of investigation and exposure of lazy work is the reason I love hacker news.
- vel0city 4mo agoA number of other cars' infotainment systems are also based on ASOP. I remember downloading updates for my Hyundai which were also essentially Android images
- hparadiz 4mo agoThe head units themselves are very dated and simply could not run recent versions of Android. I have a 2020 and I'm always eyeing up the after market units which are all better in every way.
- Tribesman3875 4mo agoits not about them being dated, or fast. Its the fact that the head unit will work in 10 years vs the aftermarket one probably dying in 2.
- hparadiz 4mo agoI don't think I've ever seen a head unit die. After market or otherwise. It's usually all those pesky moving parts in the front that go first.
- Brian_K_White 4mo agobased on aosp was not the notable part
- DANmode 4mo ago> AOSP Android Open Source Project for those outside the bubble!
- agrijakhetarpal 4mo ago[flagged]
- arcanemachiner 4mo agoSphere of knowledge/awareness, i.e. non-Android-nerds
- brysonreece 4mo ago[flagged]
- inigyou 4mo agoBaby don't hurt me
- Kapura 4mo agobeautifully done.
- The_SamminAter 4mo agoHey, how did you obtain the update file? I’ve been trying to probe an Acura head unit from the same year, it’s also on Android 4.x, but have ran into a roadblock when it comes to obtaining an update file.