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I hacked my car

programmingwithstyle.com

101–110 of 142 posts

Re: I hacked my car

#101
Once again, their insecurity is our freedom. One does wonder whether those who were asked to implement this "security" were not happy about doing so, and just decided to make the equivalent of a speed bump instead of a wall.

I remember "carputers" were a somewhat common aftermarket mod in the early 2000s, mostly running a stripped-down 98 or XP on an SSD or memory card. The obvious difference being that you had full control of it from the start. Here's an example of someone doing so:

http://www.avbrand.com/projects/carpc/

Re: I hacked my car

#102
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane. And the cars in question have no immobilizer, so the process is just finding a 2021 or older Kia/Hyundai of a certain model, one with a physical key instead of a pushbutton. Then you just rip apart the steering column and turn the ignition cylinder. I was confused because a USB cable was involved, but it's apparently only because it slides nicely over the mechanism to help you turn it, as opposed to having to…

Insane? This is just what stealing a car was like in 1970. If you get the ignition to turn, you've stolen the car. If you're dependent on technology to stop vehicle theft, you've basically already lost. At the end of the criminals will just use a flatbed tow truck to steal the vehicle if it is worth enough. The "immobilizers" you're referring to are the bane of my existence from my perspective. Instead of getting che…

>At the end of the criminals will just use a flatbed tow truck to steal the vehicle if it is worth enough.

Working-class teenagers in Milwaukee do not use flatbed tow trucks to steal cars.

>The "immobilizers" you're referring to are the bane of my existence from my perspective. Instead of getting cheap $5 copies of my keys made, I have to pay something like $120 to Ford to get copies made.

Ask anyone in Milwaukee whose car hasn't been stolen whether they regret having an immobilizer.

Re: I hacked my car

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane? This is just what stealing a car was like in 1970. If you get the ignition to turn, you've stolen the car. If you're dependent on technology to stop vehicle theft, you've basically already lost. At the end of the criminals will just use a flatbed tow truck to steal the vehicle if it is worth enough. The "immobilizers" you're referring to are the bane of my existence from my perspective. Instead of getting che…

>At the end of the criminals will just use a flatbed tow truck to steal the vehicle if it is worth enough. Working-class teenagers in Milwaukee do not use flatbed tow trucks to steal cars. >The "immobilizers" you're referring to are the bane of my existence from my perspective. Instead of getting cheap $5 copies of my keys made, I have to pay something like $120 to Ford to get copies made. Ask anyone in Milwaukee who…

Sure, I concur that teens don't use flatbed tow trucks.

But if as a society, the default has become that your car will be stolen then the society has collapsed. It's more like a bunch of competing warlords, with the most prominent one being the local government.

Re: I hacked my car

#105
The thing that puts me off ever buying a new car - particularly an EV - is the insistence on loading it down with things like "In Vehicle Infotainment". I don't want that. I want an entirely gadget-free car.

Re: I hacked my car

#106
post #98
post #96

Kudos to the author! I did some research in my car a few years ago. Unfortunately, the update packages were properly signed. So I reversed the CAN traffic and replaced the infotainment ECU with my own reimplementation. I published my work and findings on medium thinking that nobody could notice them... I have got a job in the automotive industry instead.

Any reason for not linking to that medium post? Did the new employer politely ask you to take it down?

They probably did not want to self-promote. Here is a link to their Medium articles: https://medium.com/@fmntf

Re: I hacked my car

#107
post #20

I've heard of much worse security no-no's. The worst example I'm familar with is of a Fortune-500 corporate database with data for millions of private citizens exposed for years on the public web over plain old http (not even https), without any password or public/private key protection, such that anyone anywhere with the right URL or IP address could access it. The big question, of course, is: Why haven't we had a s…

For my money, they're still not aware and wouldn't know what it meant if someone told them.

Re: I hacked my car

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At the end of the criminals will just use a flatbed tow truck to steal the vehicle if it is worth enough. Working-class teenagers in Milwaukee do not use flatbed tow trucks to steal cars. >The "immobilizers" you're referring to are the bane of my existence from my perspective. Instead of getting cheap $5 copies of my keys made, I have to pay something like $120 to Ford to get copies made. Ask anyone in Milwaukee who…

Sure, I concur that teens don't use flatbed tow trucks. But if as a society, the default has become that your car will be stolen then the society has collapsed. It's more like a bunch of competing warlords, with the most prominent one being the local government.

Yes, that's an accurate description of much of Milwaukee.

Re: I hacked my car

#109

I worked on Infotainment for a number of years with an Automotive OEM. I’ve only ever heard insiders use the term IVI, so I’m curious if the author has some exposure to the industry. As for gaining access to the engineering, I’m interested that it was left in. We logged everything of course, but all of our engineering tools were removed during the build process. Essentially, our engineering mode was baked out.

I assume they intend for some of it to be used by dealerships (like firmware updates), which usually aren't done OTA.

Late model vehicles (I would say the past 3-5 years) definitely do system updates OTA, at least for vehicles that I worked on.

Re: I hacked my car

#110
post #96

Kudos to the author! I did some research in my car a few years ago. Unfortunately, the update packages were properly signed. So I reversed the CAN traffic and replaced the infotainment ECU with my own reimplementation. I published my work and findings on medium thinking that nobody could notice them... I have got a job in the automotive industry instead.

That's pretty cool! I wonder how properly they were really signed - there are _so many_ mistakes even in systems that at least don't use an example key off the Internet.

The most common ones I know of are:

* Out-of-bounds write issues allowing "signature was validated" flags to be overwritten in Flash memory, like https://github.com/jglim/UnsignedFlash

* State machine mistakes, like https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash/blob/master/docs/docs.md - allowing Flash to be written again after it was already written, without an erase first.

* File format parsing mistakes, like those in a number of VW AG head units: https://github.com/jilleb/mib2-toolbox/issues/122

* The use of RSA with E=3 and inadequate padding validation, like https://words.filippo.io/bleichenbacher-06-signature-forgery... .

* Failure to understand the system boundaries, like in the second part of https://github.com/bri3d/simos18_sboot where "secret" data can be recovered by halting the system during a checksum process.

* Hardware fault injection issues, as used in https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/system... .

Fundamentally this is of course, a very hard problem, since in the "protect against firmware modification" case, the attacker has physical access. But, compared to the state of the art in mobile devices and game consoles, automotive stuff is still way behind.

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