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Remote Exploit On a Production Chrysler To Be Presented At BlackHat
Matt_Bennett writes: A scary remote exploit is going to be published that enables someone connected to the the same wireless (mobile data) network
to take over many [automobile] systems, including braking. This is an exploit in Chrysler's Uconnect system. Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek also demonstrated exploits in 2013 that could be done via a direct connection to the system, but this is vastly expanded in scope. The pair convinced Wired writer Andy Greenberg to drive around near St. Louis while they picked apart the car's systems from 10 miles away, killing the radio controls before moving on to things like the transmission.
As I felt with their first video, these "security researchers" play with the steering on a car moving 40mph on a public road. Now they've gone and done this. Playing with the driving controls on a 2 ton vehicle moving at 70 mph on a busy road.
In this video they said "it wouldn't be anything life threatening" which shows that they don't have a clear view of reality in the situation. A seat belt won't
you have a 70mph head on collision with a semi. The driver wasn't informed beforehand that he could bail out of the test by restarting the car, they waiting
until he was panicing to try to tell him that.
What if they made a mistake and turned the car into oncoming traffic? What if their computers were remotely controlled?
Is the situation with car's vulnerabilities serious? Yes of course.
Will this video help to drive home the problem to the public? Maybe, but probably not.
Should they have done this demo on a public road? Absolutely not.
Bottom line, when you are doing a test where there is physical risk, you need to be in control of the environment and not putting the public in harms way.
This isn't your home computer and your email account. This is real life.
Bravo gentlemen. The only way this will get the full and due attention of the media and the car companies is by demonstrating life-threatening risk in the UConnect system. If this were a track test, it would be dismissed by the car companies as contrived, and the media would rather talk about Trump. This will now assuredly end up on the front page unless killed by Chrysler via influence peddling. It's time digital security was a real concern when it comes to my family hurtling down the highway at 75mph in what can now be convincingly argued is a very real digital death trap.
Disagree, in fact I'll probably shake their hands at DEFCON (assuming they're there again).
The fact that they demonstrated vulnerabilities and then showed automakers multiple ways how to avoid such things (#1 firewall or separate networks; #2 technology to detect and kill anomalous signals) and STILL the automakers shipped defective product...is the problem.
>> Will this video help to drive home the problem to the public?
No, but I'd expect a few class action lawsuits will get their attention. I've read a few attorneys' periodicals warming up trial lawyers for IoT product liability, and automakers and their big pockets are sure to be some of their first targets (I think I've seen one settlement already happen).
I've taken all the sub-systems out of a 2005 Subaru WRX to build another car from the bits. Although there are a lot of electronic modules, very few of them are connected to each other. The cruise control, airbag, ABS, climate control, heating, entertainment, lighting, and engine control systems are all completely independent from one another. I can 100% guarantee that a compromise in any one of the systems cannot be used to control any of the others on this car.
My experience tells me that it's mostly cars from the past five years or so that are vulnerable to this type of exploit. Anything pre-CANbus has pretty much zero chance of having complex interconnections. Even most early CANbus cars only use the bus for mundane stuff like sending speedo and tach signals to multiple systems. It's a pretty recent trend to start adding things like door locks and brakes to the main bus.