Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Car hacking
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."