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US Wants Cybersecurity Protection Plan For Cars
coondoggie writes "As cars and other forms of transportation increasingly rely on online systems for everything from safety to onboard entertainment, the cybersecurity threat from those who would exploit such electronic control packages has also increased. That's why the US Department of Transportation (DOT) today issued a Request For Information to the security industry to help it build a roadmap to build 'motor vehicle safeguards against cybersecurity threats and assure the reliability and safety of automotive electronic control systems.'"
How come the first thing that came to mind was "they want to put a kill switch in my car?" They won't call it that, of course.
Call me a tinfoil'd mad hatter, but com'on. This is atrocious! one more thing for the gov to get their meddling hands into... I'm buying engines from now on; old, lackluster diesel autos without the obd* inside.
Let's stop cramming all this electronic shit into our cars. The wireless capabilities of the newer cars these days is really starting to get scary. The tech is awesome, but the potential for wrong-doing (government, vandals, or otherwise) is just too great. Only so much of the new stuff they're coming out with is actually useful; the rest of it is just junk meant to distract from the actual act of driving, or to add to the billfold of whoever builds the replacements for these in-car computers.
If I cyber-see the cyber word in one more cyber-news article I am going to cyber-kick the people who cyber-pen each one of these fucking cyber-articles and cyber-laws. Its about damn cyber-time that we accept that cyber-things that happen in the cyber-world are no more disconnected from cyber-reality than the communication medium we cyber-interact with.
I am electronically typing this on my electronic keyboard and viewing this cyber-page with my electronic monitor. Thankfully, after a real-day of complete cyber-bullshit, I relax with my dead-tree-books on my physical-leather couch in my real-house in the real-world.
The real cyber-question is whether or not this cyber-rant is virtual pontification or just more cyber chat. I'll get on my AOL and go AskJeeves it and see if I can find a GeoCities page that describes proper usage of 90's buzzwords that are used way to cyber-much.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
As with so many other systems, when it doesn't need to be connected to a network to do what it does and when connecting it to said network opens up the chance for attacks over the network, THEN LEAVE IT OF THE FSCKING NETWORK! Regardless of if it is airplane systems, nuclear centerfuges, general industrial control systems, medical equipment, cars or whatever else, if you leave it completely unconnected from a network then you have removed a very real vector of attack. And that doesn't mean you have to stop paying attention, but it does mean you are off to a good start.
It seems to me there's really no inherent danger in adding wireless networking and other new electronics technologies to our vehicles. A big part of the potential problem stems from the insistence of auto-makers to integrate everything into ONE common system. For example, my 2007 Jeep Patriot 4x4 uses a CANBUS interface as the central communications bus for practically all of the electronics in the vehicle. If you try to swap out something like the factory headlights with an aftermarket set of HID lamps? You're likely to run into problems, because the system senses less electrical resistance on the headlight circuit than it expects, so it makes lights blink on and off in an "error" pattern. You can't successfully change out the factory stereo with an aftermarket one either, without spending $150+ more for a CANBUS module to plug in behind it, so the computer system communicates with it as it expects to see it. Other factory accessories won't work properly either, until the Jeep is taken in to the dealer and the firmware re-flashed with a version that has those features "enabled" in it.
If things like wi-fi in the car are only interfaced with the stereo/media center, and that system is independent of the computer handling the engine, transmission, etc.? Hackers won't be able to do a single thing that directly affects the safety or performance of the vehicle. They'll only be able to mess up your in-dash entertainment system.
Just because your code is in ROM doesn't mean you can't be hacked. Your stack is still in RAM. If you can find one little exploit that lets you put as little as, say, 12 bytes onto the stack, if you know everything that's in the ROM, you could repurpose the existing ROM code to do whatever you wanted by calling the tail ends of existing functions.
On that link, search forward for "Because they knew this was a voting machine, security was paramount. They made it so that it was impossible to execute code from RAM. They thought, there's no way, there's no reason that anyone has a legitimate reason for executing code from RAM" and read from there. Yes, it's long. Get the MP3 if you'd rather listen.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
There is a model-T that still runs in my area. I've seen the guy a few times in the grocery store parking lot, and cruising about the retail district. I'm pretty sure cybersecurity is not a problem for him.
In other words, the solution is: Duh! Cars don't need to be on any stinkin' network.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?