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Testing Out Cell-Phone Viruses on a Prius
Mikko Hypponen writes "Couple of months ago there were rumours floating around that Bluetooth viruses could infect the on-board computers of some Lexus cars, or at least cause some visible effects on them. We took a Toyota Prius to an underground bunker and tested various Bluetooth mobile phone viruses and assorted Bluetooth attacks against the onboard computer. Results were somewhat surprising. It came as no surprise that we could not infect the car, but the Prius performed in the test even better than expected. No matter what we did the car did not react to the Bluetooth traffic at all. Cabir tried to send itself to the car and the car just did not allow the Bluetooth OBEX transfer to happen. Then, the whole car crashed (but not because of a virus)... Full story with pictures in our weblog."
Apart from the car crashing. Maybe a few less pints of Boddington's next time you head for the bunker, eh?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The article said "After intensive tests for all morning, the battery of the car was running low".
Does that mean that a similar DOS attack can disable most cars in a car park?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
After all, cell phone virii only attack those who pay way too much for a car, without increased efficiency ...
...
Hmmm, maybe the Matrix is happening
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
RTFA. It wasn't their car. Toyota lent it to them.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Granted, the transmission may not be working -- but there should be a diagnostic saying "OMFG Battery Voltage Low" first. If you lost your arms in an industrial accident you don't start by telling the doctor that you have a hard time holding pens...
It came as no surprise that we could not infect the car, but the Prius performed in the test even better than expected.
We're all doomed!
Police have warned all families with nerdy children to be on the look out for unexplained cars turning up in their garage.
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
TFA, further down the page, describes the user experience of a Cabir infection. The recipient must click "yes" a number of times to accept the unknown transmission, install the unknown file, and bypass a security warning about installing something from an unverified supplier. Why do people click "yes" to all this? Because if you click "No" the virus keeps trying to install itself and pester you with the messages.
Definitely reminds me of "Abort/Retry/Fail" error message of so long ago. The first time you ever see the message, you hit "retry" a few times hoping it will work. Eventually, the computer teaches you to never try "retry" because it only puts up the error message again.
This virus is social engineering at its best, just like the whiny kid in the grocery store. Keep pestering until they say "yes."
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
After all, the cell phones use Symbian OS, and the Prius (and Lexus) both do not use it, so it isn't very suprising that the virus wouldn't work. After all, you don't hear very often that a MS-Windows virus infects a Macintosh.
Also, I liked the apparent security features in the car, that it didn't react to the bluetooth traffic, but then again, this is probably just due to an inconpatiblility - i.e. the car won't except any type of data but a specific type, like a valid VCARD phone book.
"Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write it should be hard to understand."
You do realize that these people (F-Secure) are virus fighters? They intentionally infect all kinds of things all day long, so they can figure out how to cure them.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Reading the article, they're talking about going undergound in order to not effect any other cellphones in the area, and it stuck me as to how much is the same between a computer virus and a "physical" virus. I mean, scientists who work with e.g. bubonic plague, have to take the same cautions, i.e. not letting the virus out into the "wild", where it can spread. I suppose in a few years, many viruses will be tested like this, taking them into a underground bunker, putting them on a computer that has absolutly no connection to the outside world, and trying to find a cure for it. Then the geeks shall hold the true power.
Does anyone else feel disturbed by that statement?
We waited hesistantly a moment, turned ignition off and rebooted the car...
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
With my 1979 Toyota Camry no matter what bluetooth signals I sent there was no response. Needless to say, I was shocked!
Did KITT ever get a virus?
If he ever got sick it would have been that he was just sick of having David Hasselhoff hanging around all the time.
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
into the cellphone industry.
They have done the impossible: they created a bluetooth system that no virus in existant can infect.
Microsoft, are you listening?
God I think I will feel much safer knowing that my cellphone (and probably my comp's OS) is made by Toyota.
Obviously this test was not sponsored by Microsoft.
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Perhaps it's time to find a less ambiguous word to describe a system failure. I'm sure I wasn't the only one whose first glance at the article caught a much different meaning than was intended. Crash works fine in contexts where it doesn't already have a use, but when you refer to cars or planes, it does.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
... was the story from the guy whose cell phone caught the cabir virus, and his phone company's solution was to throw it away and buy a new phone.
...
Now I'm going to be expecting to hear that Microsoft has adopted this approach (and PHBs are ordering their people to do it)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I'm no professional scientist, but it was my understanding that in order to prove something was not true, you have to demonstrate why it can never happen, not that it doesn't happen on a single car that you test it on.
... "Why Windows never crashes: we tested and it didn't so it never crashes okay ?" No trouble getting funding for that study from Redmond.
There must be hundreds of different versions of the car's software that have varying levels of resilience to the virus.
I can't wait to see the follow up
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
This is really good, you guys are killing me.
1 486620).
Trying to infect Prius with a Symbian "virus" is like trying to infect a tree with a choc chip cookie . Hey I can come up with a better one - it's like trying to infect shampoo with a book on eating disorders (now go picture that in your head for a second).
I won't go into debunking this as I have already done that (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137390&cid=1
But this is so sweet - it takes one dumb kid with too much time on their hands and one even dumber kid to moderate at voila! you get slashdot "news".
Don't you love it!
It looked like a decomissioned military underground hangar. We have those here in Finland mined all over the bedrock. (And F-Secure is a Finnish company)
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They should've at least used a Bluetooth packet analyzer and captured the data stream to and from the phone/car. It should be a good read. And a better disection could be performed.