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Hackers Remotely Cut a Corvette's Brakes
An anonymous reader writes: Security researchers presented work at the USENIX conference today showing an easy way to hack into a car's electronics using a small gadget that plugs into modern dashboards. The port they're taking advantage of is commonly used to monitor the location and speeds of these vehicles. Once the researchers' dongle is attached, they can use SMS messages to transmit commands to the car's internal network. They demonstrated this by remotely cutting a Corvette's brakes. "Though the researchers say their Corvette brake tricks only worked at low speeds due to limitations in the automated computer functions of the vehicle, they say they could have easily adapted their attack for practically any other modern vehicle and hijacked other critical components like locks, steering or transmission, too."
It can't. The ABS module is designed to be mechanically failsafe. Have a look at a design. The system can only modulate the pressure in the brake line. It does not have any ability to vent to the reservoir or lock out the pedal connection (the isolation valve is just for pedal feel). All it can do is dump a tiny amount of fluid into a small internal reservoir and then pump it back into the line. If the system fails, whether due to a stuck valve, electronics going crazy, or just loss of power, the worst you'll get is a pedal that moves a bit further and no ABS. Even if you could flash the firmware in the controller through the CAN bus (which you normally can't) to get full control of all the valves and pumps you can't 'cut the brakes'.