The Shoddy State of Automotive Wireless Security

angry tapir writes "Researchers from Rutgers University and University of South Carolina have found that wireless communications between new cars and their tires can be intercepted or even forged. While the potential for misuse may be minimal, this vulnerability points to a troubling lack of rigor with secure software development for new automobiles, said Wenyuan Xu, a computer science assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, who was a co-lead on the study. The researchers will present their findings at the Usenix Security Symposium, being held this week in Washington DC."

Comments

Re:Probably the right design choice

[Thanshin]

Nope. Perfect security is the objective, whatever the cost.

I think it's time to start a War on Insecure Car-tyre Communication.

Btw, when I call someone, people around me can hear my side of the conversation. Does anyone know where to buy cones of silence?

Re:Lets skip to the heart of the matter

[Gordonjcp]

You can use the ABS sensors to detect a soft tyre. Some Volkswagens can actually have a soft tyre warning added, by a firmware update!

Basically what you do is you measure the output of all four wheel sensors (as the ABS unit does anyway), and see if one is consistently a higher speed than the others. Soft tyre == smaller rolling radius == faster rotation for the same road speed. It won't catch if all your tyres are equally flat.

  This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original...

So why isn't it showing up?

Potential for Misuse

[AlecC]

A friend's wife had a problem with her car which caused the dashboard to light up with multiple warning lights. My friend, a highly skilled hardware engineer, traced the fault after half an hour's work: a single underinflated tire, presumably reported by the sensors referred to in TFA. The tire sensor had turned on its own warning light - so far so good. But it had also talked to the ABS, which had decided to turn itself off, producing another red warning. And this had talked to the central monitoring system, which had flagged up a safety critical fault and ordered her to a garage. And maybe some other faults.

So a malicious prankster could suddenly turn on a christmas tree of warning lights on many passing cars, with results comic to some but potentially dangerous if the driver is distracted and/or does something unexpected like an emergency stop or a swerve to the shoulder.