How to Hack a Car: Phreaked Out (Episode 2)

In this episode of "Phreaked Out," we met some of the top security researchers at the center of the car hacking world. The goal isn't to make people crash: They highlight security holes in order to highlight flaws in car technology, intended to pressure auto manufacturers to be a few steps ahead of their friendly foes.

Information security researcher Mathew Solnik gave us a first-hand demonstration on how to wirelessly send commands to the car and remotely tell it what to do. With a little over a grand and about a month of work, Solnik found time outside of his full-time job to reverse-engineer a car's computer system to make it ready for a takeover.

From his laptop, he was able to manipulate the car's engine, brakes and security systems by wirelessly tapping into the Controller Area Network, or CAN bus, network. Without getting too deep into the details—both for legal reasons and due to my own training-wheel knowledge of such things—he was able to do so by implementing some off-the-shelf chips, a third party telematic control unit, a GSM-powered wireless transmitter/receiver setup, and a significant amount of know-how he's accrued over the years.

The reason for such additional hardware was to make our older, mid-sized sedan function like a newer—and arguably more vulnerable—stock vehicle, which these days often come with data connections. (We would have loved to tinker with the latest, most connected car on the market, but since we were on a shoestring budget and it's incredibly hard to find a friend who's willing to lend their car for a hacking experiment, our pickings were slim.)

With that said, a car whose network system is connected to a cloud server and accessible by Bluetooth, cell networks, or wi-fi is potentially vulnerable to intrusion.

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[tommytucker]

Lucky my car is so shitty it would be like trying to hack a mobile potato

[Zaman]

Next thing you know, you have to start buying anti virus for your car.

[navaks]

See the problem is that 98% of people I know either don’t know or don’t care that much about these issues. It’s just mind blowing when you realize that people live in obscurity pretty much, doing the daily stuff they do without knowing the risks and threats...

[derezarmaster]

When you realise this is a video from 6 years ago and you're watching it in 2020.

[slamminx]

I hacked my car and changed it from a Golf to a Lamborghini. I got VAC banned though
:(

[ihazdaforks]

Someone could install this into their own car, sell it and then steal it back. Then just resell it again in a different town or state. Rinse and repeat, unlimited money.

[tylerbyers]

“This guy is an expert”
“This is actually my first time trying this”

[thedoc]

I've installed car electronics for 15 years. And some of this stuff can be done. As far as the steering and brakes go, they can only be controlled remotely if your car is equipped with electronic steering assist, and/or automatic braking system. But as far as the other functions such as start/stop the engine, lock/unlock doors, lights on/off, etc. Most cars since 1995 have been equipped with an ECU (engine control unit) and a BCM (Body Control Module) which are central brain units that control the commands of each switch or button in your vehicle. Easily plugging a device into the obd II connector and having the right software, it is possible to remotely take over someone's car without them ever suspecting anything.

[pandakso]

10:34 "The proper way to maintain system security is hacking it." So true

[KefkeWren]

I've said this could happen for a long time, now. Glad to see professionals finally addressing this. I worry about the rest of the world, sometimes.

[GamezGames]

Reminds me of Ford's and Toyota's sudden acceleration accidents.

[imstillwing]

The worlds next billionaire: Anti Hackware for your car.

[Stormtrooper]

*The guy takes his cyber security to the next level*

[Gri-m]

Imagine you're sitting in your self driving car and suddenly some hacker kidnap you by locking the doors and windows and telling the car to drive to them.

[jstrct]

makes me wonder if these recent celebrity car accidents were really accidents

[RockG.o.d]

Me: "Officer my car just started to speed up by its self and wouldn't stop, I think my car got hacked."

Officer: "bullsht they can't do that, now licence and registration. "

Me: " yeah okay you got me, I was dying for a piss and I didn't want to urinate on the side of the road, so I was rushing home for the toilet."

[daffyduck]

Pretty straight forward stuff, you could use this backwards, you can make your car send you data about itself at certain intervals. Use it for data analytics, make your car talk to you, remind it to remind you to take it to service - etc.

[AgentJayZ]

So carbureted muscle cars with breaker-point ignitions and a complete lack of electronic anything enjoy an immunity to such threats... And they still run after over 40 years.
Will there be old car nuts restoring today's PCs on wheels in 2050?
I hope so !

[mtothem]

They installed a unit that controls the computer of the car, you need physical access to do that, so it's not like it's a magical hack that is wireless, it requires alot of work.

[El_Cyclista_Desaparecido]

So Michael Hastings car could have been hacked.