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Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

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Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#81

Post by Tribesman3875 »

hparadiz wrote: post #13
vel0city wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A number of other cars' infotainment systems are also based on ASOP. I remember downloading updates for my Hyundai which were also essentially Android images

The 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.

its 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.

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#82

Post by bri3d »

hahamaster wrote: post #49

I wish other car makers were as reasonable as Honda here. No "evil valet" with half a brain cell would waste time hacking the head unit if they have physical access to the car. They would simply hide a spying device somewhere in the car. Not to mention that people with Civics are never targets of three letter agencies.

I'm hoping this comment is a joke? It's kind of nonsensical.

> I wish other car makers were as reasonable as Honda here.

I doubt they did this on purpose.

> No "evil valet" with half a brain cell would waste time hacking the head unit if they have physical access to the car.

Keep in mind that head units usually also contain historic data; stuff like left-over synced phone contacts in SQLite databases, historic location data collected either explicitly for telemetry or accidentally in log files etc.

Additionally, head units usually have access to a lot of internal buses in a car; depending on manufacturer there's sometimes some level of firewalling effort, for example through a Gateway module, but these firewalls are usually quite weak when they are present at all (see: the famous thing with Honda unlock and starter release working with no cryptographic material through the same CAN bus as the headlights). This means that the infotainment can usually control some part of the car, and is much more powerful than a tracking device.

Plus, implanting code (or just extracting the data that's already there) from a head unit leaves much less evidence than adding an additional tracker.

> Not to mention that people with Civics are never targets of three letter agencies.

???

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#83

Post by mrbuttons454 »

This is great information, thank you for posting!

I think there is a line between security, and keeping a device useful in the long term. I think the threat of people installing listening malware on the car via an evil-maid type attack is low.

However, when these cars are 10+ years old, and are in the hands of those willing to tinker, I think the ability to open up the software and customize will be a great thing. Hopefully communities form around creating modifications they find useful, and prolongs the life of the devices.

Seems much better than the end-users ripping out the factory head unit to install the Aliexpress "Android Tablet" style units, which likely have much worse security and engineering than the Honda units they'd be replacing.

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#85

Post by Kapura »

librick wrote: post #2

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 requ…

beautifully done.

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#87

Post by drew870mitchell »

saaaaaam wrote: post #52
hahamaster wrote: post #49

I wish other car makers were as reasonable as Honda here. No "evil valet" with half a brain cell would waste time hacking the head unit if they have physical access to the car. They would simply hide a spying device somewhere in the car. Not to mention that people with Civics are never targets of three letter agencies.

Not sure if you’re being sarcastic/satirical or not. If you are, fine. But if you’re not - why would someone driving a civic not be a target of an intelligence agency? It’s one of the most common cars about there, so if you want to fade into the background it’s a perfect car. Also, lots of otherwise “normal” people - scientists, engineers, journalists, lawyers - likely drive Honda civics. A spying device hidden in th…

Whenever we get to talking about three letter agencies, i wish people spent more time thinking about their threat model. Is the TLA surveilling me because they're broadly interested in everybody? OK then, the return on investment isn't there to pull an evil maid attack on public randos. If the TLA is interested in you because of who you specifically are, the average individual can't begin to plug all the possible holes in their lives.

As a Honda owner (but the kind the company probably doesn't really really love since i'm still driving a 2006) i actually think it's better for the long haul that their cars are hackable given physical possession.

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#88

Post by varenc »

brookst wrote: post #78
varenc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not good that they allow anyone that happens to be in your car briefly root access. It'd be live having an always-on laptop in your office with a open shell on it. They should have provided some mechanism for the real owner to approve updates if the updates aren't all trusted by default.

How do you validate “the real owner” if having the keys isn’t enough? That sufficient to steal the car. You could do a PIN/password, but if it is never used during operation, nobody will know it. Ask anyone who’s had a head unit that needed a PIN after losing power.

Mere possession is also enough for someone to steal your laptop, but that still shouldn't allow them to trivially install a secret persistent backdoor, or break your disk encryption.

Agree that a PIN/Password would have usability problems with a car. Since no car manufacturer intentionally permits you to install software you want, there's no standard mechanism. But if this was standard I think an owner-set PIN would be very reasonable.

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#89

Post by The_SamminAter »

librick wrote: post #2

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 requ…

Hey, 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.

Re: Honda Civics and the Evil Valet

#90

Post by drnick1 »

One more reason to remove the cellular modem from the car, so that even a compromised vehicle cannot exfiltrate information or be otherwise remotely controlled. This is something that every modern car owner should do immediately when taking possession of the car.
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