Used Cars Can Still Be Controlled By Their Previous Owners' Apps (wtkr.com)

An IBM security researcher recently discovered something interesting about smart cars. An anonymous reader quotes CNN: Charles Henderson sold his car several years ago, but he still knows exactly where it is, and can control it from his phone... "The car is really smart, but it's not smart enough to know who its owner is, so it's not smart enough to know it's been resold," Henderson told CNNTech. "There's nothing on the dashboard that tells you 'the following people have access to the car.'" This isn't an isolated problem. Henderson tested four major auto manufacturers, and found they all have apps that allow previous owners to access them from a mobile device. At the RSA security conference in San Francisco on Friday, Henderson explained how people can still retain control of connected cars even after they resell them.

Manufacturers create apps to control smart cars -- you can use your phone to unlock the car, honk the horn and find out the exact location of your vehicle. Henderson removed his personal information from services in the car before selling it back to the dealership, but he was still able to control the car through a mobile app for years. That's because only the dealership that originally sold the car can see who has access and manually remove someone from the app.
It's also something to consider when buying used IoT devices -- or a smart home equipped with internet-enabled devices.

Comments

Growing Pains

[Anonymous Coward]

I just purchased a used vehicle and not only was the former owners phone still programmed to the car but their garage door and childrens phones were too. I wiped it all of course. I was very surprised the dealership didn't wipe it prior to putting out for sale. The vehicle was from another time zone too somewhere in Texas and I'm on the east coast. The wrong time was what originally had me go into the menus and that's where I found the rest of their personally identifiable information. Something to keep in mind prior to selling your vehicle, wipe your dash system phone book and telemetry data.

Industry still has a lot to learn. They should hire pen testers. Park a few in the lobby of a black hat conference and let people go to town on them, let attendees earn some bounties while there. Get some feedback. It's like auto manufacturers hire programmers fresh out of high school with very little experience especially with security. Also, FFS auto manufacturers allow for firmware updates to update protocols from WEP to WPA2 or whatever comes in the future. Jesus.

Re:Growing Pains

[grahamsz]

Rental companies too. I'm surprised by how many rentals I get where people have not only left their phone pairs, but have often synced their entire contact list. I'm disappointed that rental companies don't reset, never crossed my mind that dealers would be so inept.

Breaking the law?

[grahammm]

Are the previous owners not breaking the law by retaining such control? When you sell something then you are supposed to give up all interest and rights to it, to do otherwise is an act of conversion

User data can also be left behind

[microcars]

My wife leased a BMW X3 that was a "demo" with 6K miles.
I found that the dealer had not bothered to wipe any info stored in the car's nav/entertainment system.
The nav had all the previous destinations stored.
The radio buttons had been pre-programmed to dial certain numbers and they were still active.
Previous users music was still loaded in memory.
I had to purge all this myself and now have to do it again when she turns in the car because I can't trust the dealer to do it.
I doubt that anyone else really pays attention to this. When I brought it up to the dealer at the first Service interval they just sort of shrugged it off.

Oh, and when we were being "introduced" to the car's tech, the dealer showed my wife how to download their "app".
This consisted of going to a BMW web page and then saving the web page to the Home Screen as a shortcut icon.
When I said that was not an "app", the tech guy just gave me a look.