Hacking The Tesla Model S: A DefCon Talk

Status
Not open for further replies.

jaber2

Distinguished
Jan 21, 2012
702
0
18,990
Me: "hey its me, I am not going to be in today"
Boss: "why not?"
Me: "there was a patch for my car last night and it didn't take, so the whole system is down, I have to wait for a tech to come by and reinstall from flash dive, they told me I can do it but I needed to open the dashboard and download the drivers, I told them I don't have a screw driver, anyway now I have to wait for this guy to come down from LA, I will try to come in if they fix it but I am going to think twice about leasing another, sorry boss."
 

f-14

Distinguished
i don't like that the sub systems of speed and braking are not manual, some short or future virus hack will surely come out just like an adam lanza( because they are mental and can ) the fact something else can control these systems should make it illegal to use, manual should be the only option " sorry your honor i was asleep some dude in the parking lot made my car run over/shove into the train tracks infront of speeding train - granny/dumb blonde/child " regardless of the fact it may not be your fault, this would not happen with a manual system.
drunk drivers hitting power poles, storms happen, power lines and lightning bolts contact vehicles alot, not all cars will travel thru time when 1.21 jigawatts transfers into these non souped up de loreans doc brown never modified.
"sorry your honor hackers did it" that excuse should be eliminated before it even has a chance to become mainstream in courts of law.
the power goes off in a current automobile and it can still be controlled and stopped. ford and honda have been having problems with the automatic electric throttles since they started using them and they all have much more expensive platoons of lawyers that have successfully denied these problems in courts of law until these bugs were replicated on national television.
 

WeaponZero

Honorable
Dec 19, 2013
5
0
10,510
@jaber2 - The car flashes via OTA, if for some reason patch doesn't flash it will rollback. There is 0 reason why a tech has to come to a car with a USB drive.

@f-14 - There is really no money to be made with hacking cars and to be honest, hacking a properly programmed car like a Tesla is almost impossible. The biggest flaw that gets things hacked is user input. Since you can't exactly load stuff on the car there is little room for hacking without physical access to the car. In the case of Tesla, you have 2 processors, one for infotainment and 1 for the car. Even if you hack the infotainment, you can only do things like stop the car (and I don't mean braking) I mean stop gaining/maintaining speed so it slows down over time. That is about it. The main system is completely isolated from the infotainment.

Brakes are also always manual, you just won't get powerbraking. With an EV it is even less of an issue because you also have secondary regenerative braking.
 

Blueberries

Reputable
Dec 3, 2014
572
0
5,060
@f-14 - There is really no money to be made with hacking cars and to be honest, hacking a properly programmed car like a Tesla is almost impossible. The biggest flaw that gets things hacked is user input. Since you can't exactly load stuff on the car there is little room for hacking without physical access to the car. In the case of Tesla, you have 2 processors, one for infotainment and 1 for the car. Even if you hack the infotainment, you can only do things like stop the car (and I don't mean braking) I mean stop gaining/maintaining speed so it slows down over time. That is about it. The main system is completely isolated from the infotainment.

Pretty sure there's lots of money to be made in hacking a car. Even Tesla would pay you a good nomination to know about an exploitable bug.

On top of that, there are agencies like the NSA that already hack into cars and use this it for geological data, accessing microphones, etc. Was Michael Hasting's car hacked? Almost certainly.

If a hacker gains physical access to even one component of your car, that's one step closer to any other component of that vehicle, remember that. The NSA will happily take over your neighbor's router if it means easier access to yours, and they'll take over your car radio if it means easier access to your ECU.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.