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The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

electrek.co

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Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#61

Post by gfxgirl »

burfog wrote: post #14
wrkronmiller wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate on why you believe this?

It's like being in 1995 and predicting that Windows botnets will be created. The coming disaster is inevitable. State-sponsored hackers are not going to ignore the opportunity. They probably have the capability already, in dozens of countries, and are just waiting for orders from the leaders. If war is starting, the order will be given. Sanctions could be enough to trigger it.

So you predicted botnets in 1995 and ..... nothing much happened. botnets suck but there wasn't some world crashing event like the person above is predicting for computer controlled cars. All Windows computers didn't shut off on one day.

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#62

Post by judge2020 »

femto wrote: post #35

Isn't a "fleet-wide hack of autonomous vehicles" an oxymoron? They clearly aren't autonomous if they are controlled by an outside force that can be hacked. Maybe it depends on perspective, with the manufacturer seeing owners as outside forces, from which their vehicles are autonomous? Rolled up with the liability question is the question of who does control the vehicles and who they are autonomous from.

The vehicles are autonomous when asked, such as if you click "summon" in the app. If they gained access to Mothership after summon was introduced (they accessed it in 2017, but summon came out in 2019[0]), it could have meant accessing a car and summoning it to attacker.

0: https://youtu.be/nlCQG2rg4sw

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#63

Post by sellyme »

slimsag wrote: post #2

Pretty misleading to omit ", but fortunately he’s a good guy" in the title

I think it's reasonable to expect people to intuit that "A malicious hacker gained control over the entire Tesla fleet" would be a much bigger deal than a couple hundred points on HN. No cars currently being located in my living room is a pretty big giveaway, for one.

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#64

Post by manquer »

tw04 wrote: post #49

I hope this serves as a reminder to everyone here that THIS is why you should have a physical disconnect switch. I should be able to pull a breaker to disable self driving on my Tesla when I’m not using it.

Unless there is regulation in no automaker is going to do it themselves.

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#65

Post by judge2020 »

iRomain wrote: post #57
yabones wrote: post #46

This is what holds me back from 'smart' devices that have the potential to cause real harm... We've been making motors (electric or combustion) for over a hundred years, and gotten pretty damn good at making them safe and reliable. Same thing with stoves, HVAC equipment, small appliances, etc. These are all mature technologies that we can practically trust our lives with. Internet-connected smart vehicles aren't a ma…

I think the key here, and unfortunately most companies don't give a sh*t, is to allow the user to gain control over his device and/or take it offline if it pleases him. For example, a Tesla car should come with an option to disable any remote control features, or a way to control it over short distance only when it's offline (I don't know if its already the case, I don't have a tesla).

It's not possible without rooting your car and losing the warranty. This is legal as long as you don't touch the odometer.

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#66

Post by falcolas »

Aeolun wrote: post #55
bookshelf11 wrote: post #48

The pricing on these bug bounties always blows my mind. If this hack had been exploited Tesla market capitalization would've taken a multi-million if not billion dollar hit. And here they are, paying out relative chump change to a guy that alerted them to it.

I think, if this had been abused, Tesla would be out of business. But the fact that $50000 is chump change for Tesla does not mean it's chump change to the recipient.

It's funny, we always talk about compensating leaders for the value they provide to the company. Yet when it comes to non-leaders, it's transforms into a question of "value relative to their current/recent income".

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#67

Post by brippalcharrid »

oconnor663 wrote: post #59
bookshelf11 wrote: post #48

The pricing on these bug bounties always blows my mind. If this hack had been exploited Tesla market capitalization would've taken a multi-million if not billion dollar hit. And here they are, paying out relative chump change to a guy that alerted them to it.

I wonder if at some level of bounty payment, you run into the problem of encouraging people to introduce bugs to get a bounty. Probably no one with commit access in a major tech company would risk their career for a few months salary. But for ten years' salary...

It just needs to be a subtle bug designed by someone much smarter than the comitter, that's plausibly deniable. They certainly don't need to understand how it works, or how it's going to be used months or years later. And I understand that this sort of thing happens with governments, and TLAs, and the people leave after a few years to start their own gig with VC funding and subsequent acquisitions and no-one's the wiser.

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#68

Post by eru »

abledon wrote: post #12
burfog wrote: post #4

Someday, all cars from a particular brand will be made to crash during rush hour. The carnage will be immense. Emergency services will have to go off-road to bypass the snarl. There won't be enough helicopters to meet the demand. The brand that could cause the most damage is probably Bosch, a major automotive component manufacturer.

the guys who make power drills are writing the software for Self-Driving Cars[1]? Who is running that ship lol [1] https://www.bosch.com/stories/future-vehicles/

Do you know how much silly stuff Google makes in addition to self-driving cars?

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#69

Post by godelski »

thoughtstheseus wrote: post #18
burfog wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like being in 1995 and predicting that Windows botnets will be created. The coming disaster is inevitable. State-sponsored hackers are not going to ignore the opportunity. They probably have the capability already, in dozens of countries, and are just waiting for orders from the leaders. If war is starting, the order will be given. Sanctions could be enough to trigger it.

I thought it was well known that infrastructure has been a target of state hacking?

I think this is well known to tech literate people. Problem is that that's not most people. On HN we have sampling bias because we're more likely to be associated with people with similar interests, i.e. tech.

Re: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet

#70

Post by nostoc »

femto wrote: post #35

Isn't a "fleet-wide hack of autonomous vehicles" an oxymoron? They clearly aren't autonomous if they are controlled by an outside force that can be hacked. Maybe it depends on perspective, with the manufacturer seeing owners as outside forces, from which their vehicles are autonomous? Rolled up with the liability question is the question of who does control the vehicles and who they are autonomous from.

The car can know how to drive (be autonomous) and still receive instructions from a remote source.

The car is autonomous but can't read your mind, you have to provide locations to drive to. These can come from a remote server.

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