Police Slowly Waking Up To Fact That Vehicle Network Security Is A Joke To Hackers, Thieves
from the internet-of-not-so-smart-things dept
We've been talking for several years now about how modern "smart cars" don't adhere to particularly smart security practices. Nissan recently opened Leaf owners to remote attack via a nasty vulnerability in the car's app. The Mitsubishi Outlander was similarly unveiled to be relatively trivial to hack. And last year, hackers showed just how easy it was to manipulate and disable a new Jeep Cherokee running Fiat Chrysler's UConnect platform.Most of these attacks involve the intruder worming so deeply into a vehicle's systems that they're in some cases able to actually control most if not all of the car systems from anywhere on the planet. So as you might imagine, simply unlocking the doors and starting the engine while in or near the car isn't proving too difficult for many hackers.
The Wall Street Journal notes how police and insurance companies are only just now waking up to the problem this creates for owners, one of which last month posted this video of a thief using a laptop to hack into and steal a 2010 Jeep:
"If you are going to hot-wire a car, you don’t bring along a laptop,” said Senior Officer James Woods, who has spent 23 years in the Houston Police Department’s auto antitheft unit. “We don’t know what he is exactly doing with the laptop, but my guess is he is tapping into the car’s computer and marrying it with a key he may already have with him so he can start the car."Gosh, good guess (though many of these hacks don't require a key at all). The story continues along in this vein, with a rep for the insurance industry also kind of dumbly stating the sector "thinks" that hackers might be exploiting awful car security:
"The National Insurance Crime Bureau, an insurance-industry group that tracks car thefts across the U.S., said it recently has begun to see police reports that tie thefts of newer-model cars to what it calls “mystery” electronic devices. "We think it is becoming the new way of stealing cars,” said NICB Vice President Roger Morris. “The public, law enforcement and the manufacturers need to be aware."That police "don't know" what hackers are doing and insurance companies "think" something's going on should clue you in to the fact that car hackers and thieves haven't faced much resistance for several years now. As one security analyst in the piece notes, it's going to take significantly more than the current paper-mache grade security most automakers are employing to protect vehicle owners from theft (or worse). Vehicle manufacturers are also going to have to do better than the often multi-year process it takes to issue patches once security vulnerabilities are exposed.
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Filed Under: car thieves, cars, connected cars, security, vehicle security
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Houston...
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Not for nothing but this is partly why I believe we should all own our shit, bolt to bit, and not this faux-ownership privilege based nonsense. Root the planet.
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i say anybody with fingers is up to no good.
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Solution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCl_KxGLgOA
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That'll fix everything right cause no one is gonna try and hack into a car if there are laws saying it's illegal to do so will they? SMH
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finally someone slower than the speed of government.
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Re: finally someone slower than the speed of government.
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Car manufacturers are just following Redmonds lead.
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And what do they think they can do about it? They barely knew it was a problem, certainly they know very little detail and would not understand even if it were explained like a they were five.
Possibly, the answer is for vehicle manufacturers to stop incorporating this connect everything bullshit. I do not need my vehicle connected to anything, nor my fridge, toaster, thermostat ... Products looking for a market, forced upon an unsuspecting public, abused by nefarious cretins while the owner is accused of the repercussions. This is a train wreck in slow motion.
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There's already to much in my car
In short, the vehicles are being piled up with every bell and whistle the manufacturers can dream up, and car owners are getting saddled with the bill, the reliability headaches, and now easy theft.
You could take EVERY piece of wiz-bang electro-stupidity out of every car this side of german luxary, and no one would notice, except the thieves who's job would suddenly get harder.
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Disconnect the antenna that your car is using to talk over the cell network.
can that be done to a computer so that only direct wire would connect it with the 'net?
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The exact thing to do depends on your computer. Laptops are usually easiest. On my laptop, for instance, there's an access panel that reveals the antenna connection (usually two snap connectors) for the wifi. It can easily be unplugged and reconnected later if you wish. I've had laptops that didn't have such easy access, but opening the case completely reveals the connection.
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nothing nefarious, just an old computer with an old operating system and some old software that i like and know how to use for occasional special projects.
i have zero trust in the maker of the operating system to not force an update that would surely make my software not usable and we all know there are backdoors and route-arounds in every electronic device that aren't common knowledge.
hey, where'd my tin hat go?
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If not, then my advice (as a fellow paranoid who does security-related development work) is just to disable it in the BIOS if possible.
While it is true that there exist exploits that can alter your BIOS settings, they're very rare -- and ordinary software has no chance of being able to change that setting. That stuff all happens at a level below the operating system itself, and is largely insulated from it.
In the end, though, this is a question of how secure you feel comfortable with. There is no such thing as perfect security no matter what, and the greater the level of security, the greater the inconvenience of it. Ultimately we all have to determine what level of security fits our individual situations.
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i'll check out the cards. thanks much.
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https://www.amazon.com/Club-CL303-Pedal-Steering-Wheel/dp/B000JIND4S/ref=pd_sim_263_2?ie=UTF8&a mp;dpID=31QkpgngiwL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=P0797EZ8H6S YZ2BDN9KV
Those worked in the past against proper tools... they work even better against laptops.
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Please, ban Wi-Fi.
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