Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Virginia State Police Cars Hacked

Posted by samzenpus on from the breaking-in dept.

ancientribe writes: Two models of Virginia State Police cruisers were hacked in an experiment to expose vulnerabilities in the vehicles and to come up with ways to protect the cars from hackers. Mitre Corp., the Virginia Dept. of Motor Vehicles, the University of Virginia, and other organizations in cooperation with DHS and the DOT demonstrated the attacks on an unmarked 2012 Chevrolet Impala and a marked patrol car, a 2013 Ford Taurus. GM and Ford even provided their comments to the press in the wake of the experiment.

12 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Literally nothing new by ArylAkamov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The hacks of the VSP cruisers require initial physical tampering of the vehicle as well. The researchers inserted rogue devices in the two police vehicles to basically reprogram some of the car's electronic operations, or to wage the attacks via mobile devices, which they demonstrated."

    Give physical access to a computer system and it can be compromised?

    What a shock.

    1. Re:Literally nothing new by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

      It's even worse than that. This is along the lines of give someone physical access to a machine and they can mess with it. They could have quite easily just poured a bag or rice into the fuel tank.

    2. Re:Literally nothing new by ArylAkamov · · Score: 4, Informative

      Pretty much. I'm betting they just plugged into the CAN bus.

      About as newsworthy as "ARDUINO HACKED BY USING ISCP PINS AND AVR PROGRAMMER"

  2. Clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The title should also contain "In An Experiment".

    There you go. I've saved you the trouble of even reading the summary.

  3. A feature, not a bug? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The hack required 'unrestricted access'

    They plugged into the CAN bus

    The news here is that things look pretty secure.

    1. Re:A feature, not a bug? by theronb · · Score: 2

      Probably not possible from the back seat with handcuffs?

    2. Re:A feature, not a bug? by ArylAkamov · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Agreed, probably just plugged a laptop into the CAN bus and reprogrammed the ecu.

      Should be titled "Car ECU reprogrammed using programming port"

    3. Re:A feature, not a bug? by PTBarnum · · Score: 2

      It should only take a few seconds of access to plug something into the CAN bus. I'm going to guess that whatever security protocols the police follow, there are times when someone forgets or doesn't have time to lock thier car.

  4. does hacking a police car beat by ozduo · · Score: 5, Funny

    chaining its rear axle to a post? Perhaps!

    --
    I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
  5. The Police Shouldn't Be That Worried... by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the Impala is being hacked, it should be rental car companies worrying about this. The Impala is one of the most common rental cars out there, and do car rental companies check the engine bay and OBD II ports when cars come back in? I doubt it. If someone did something nefarious to a rental car (or several over time) it could be a big problem for the agency.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:The Police Shouldn't Be That Worried... by adolf · · Score: 2

      No.

      First, this is a complete non-story: Anyone with unfettered physical access to a motor vehicle (or any other machine) can do all kinds of nefarious things to it, whether digital or not. This fact is not news.

      Second, the rental car companies have an excellent log of who has rented which vehicle. This should come as a surprise to nobody.

      Third, the next renter is random (as far as an attacker knows), so it's impossible to target to an individual. Therefore, the only result could be pseudo-random chaos.

      And an attacker seeking random-ish chaos would do better to attack cars in detached garages in noisy neighborhoods, because at least that doesn't leave a paper trail.

      Just sayin'.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
  6. Re:Were these cars running systemd? by davester666 · · Score: 2

    Yes.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!