60 Minutes will be doing a segment this Sunday on how hackers can hack into your new car and take it over. They can honk your horn, turn on your windshield wipers, disable the brakes etc.
This is the kind of thing that happen when you run stuff through a computer just because it is there and you can.
I’m more concerned about the ‘smart key’ thefts, where they are able to steal cars either by duplicating the remote key or downloading enough info from the OBDII port to create a key:
…although, old cars were easy to steal, too, in their own way.
P.S. Shouldn’t you have said, “all aspiring ne’er-do-wells need to tune in to 60 Minutes?” Because it seems that this serves as class time in “Johnny Scofflaw Vo-Tech” Car Theft 301!
This is the kind of thing that happen when you run stuff through a computer just because it is there and you can.
NO…This stuff happens because the people designing the system put little or no effort into security. If designed right it can be made extremely secure.
Keep in mind that this is one of 4 “book” months for television - it’s the month when your network’s ratings determine how much you can charge for ads for the next 3 months. So there’s going to be a lot of sensationalist BS about everything under the sun trying to lure you into watching so they can pump up their ad revenue.
Watch carefully and see if the “hack” is connected WITH A WIRE to the car’s OBD 2 port under the dash. If so, ignore the program completely, this have been possible for well over a decade.
The concern comes when you can do this through a hacked wireless connection. OnStar will already disable your car on command of a law enforcement officer talking to OnStar. GM can read your every position and see and hear everything you do in your car at any time the battery is connected as can any of the other car concierge services.
They just have more power now because everything is electrically driven and hooked to the car’s CAN bus. Steer? Sure, through your self parking electronic power steering system. Brake? Sure, through your traction control system. Throttle? Sure, through your throttle-by-wire system. Scary.
I already saw the same topic on Fox news in the AM, a few months ago.
They left Brian drive a car while the hacker followed in another car and hacked his system.
Yosemite
I don’t know if this is the new fix, On our 2015 KIA I wanted to see if I could get a smaller key as fob and key are all in one and I like a minimalist key chain, found out there can only be 2 keys programmed for the car at any time.
This is the kind of thing that happen when you run stuff through a computer just because it is there and you can.
These things are not controlled by the car just for the fun of it. They are there because they are required to be or because the consumer wants them to be.
February is ratings month so one can expect just about anything during sweeps month.
Exploding produce, nude hang gliders, libraries spontaneously combusting, you name it…
How 'bout nude, hang-gliding librarians who spontaneously combust?
meanjoe — now that was clever, wish I had thought of it
A town near us recently got new voting machines, the machines report results over wireless internet, now I am involved in a lot of computer stuff and that just sounds like a recipe for potential diasater to me. ps how many computer hacks have you heard in the news, car computers are a potential problem, can I get a firewall for my car computer?
What channel and what time.
Yosemite
I remember well the Y 2K scare about computers and the story was that “modern” cars with computers would probably not run. Had I been smart, I would have sold my non-computer carbureted 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass for a high price. I would have advertised that it would be running after Y 2K while new cars would be dead in their tracks. It wouldn’t have been worth more money than at that time period.
I am hoping to have ready for the market a special under-hood shield that will block the signal from a hacker’s transmitter after the 60 minute show. I will make this product available on late night television for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. For the first 1000 callers, I will include a second under-hood shield for only the additional shipping and handling.
For those of you out there who think I might be drinking too much with these ideas, I’ll have you know that I am on the wagon and not by choice. I have had to buy ethanol free 50:1 fuel mix at $6.99 a liter for my snow blower. This doesn’t leave enough in my social security check for booze. For my snow blower to have an alcohol free diet, I have had to forgo alcoholic beverages. At any rate, if you will buy my special under-hood shield that blocks out the signal from hackers, maybe I can resume drinking again.
now I am involved in a lot of computer stuff and that just sounds like a recipe for potential diasater to me. ps how many computer hacks have you heard in the news, car computers are a potential problem, can I get a firewall for my car computer?
If you know how computer security works…then you know the system can be made extremely secure. The telecom systems my company designs and builds are extremely secure. Some of our systems are in foreign countries where security is extremely important. Some have well over 1 million attempted hacks a week…non have succeeded.
In fact there is no known case of anyone ever cracking 128 bit encryption, And most companies are either using will be using 256 bit encryption. It would take a super computer longer then the age of the universe (14 billion years) to crack the code.
Fortunately my dumb 1999 Honda is totally hack-proof. Yes, it can be stolen, but no one wants it that badly.
I hope I’m dead before I’m forced to buy a car with all that newfangled wireless garbage. Or electric power steering.
I only saw a tease for this on CBS morning news, but the hack apparently is done through the satellite antenna and involves some kind of all access code that the manufacturers use for some reason, not explained why. The thing that concerns me is the part of disabling the brakes, no need to cut the brake line anymore.
And as for things going through the computer, why would brake lights need to go through the computer as GM does with the BCM. A lot of things have to pass through the body computer now for no good reason that I can see.
“I already saw the same topic on Fox news in the AM, a few months ago.”
yes
sensationalism at its best. that is what Fox is known for
if a Fox blonde is reporting something, you’d better pay attention, because it must be true
Sure . . .
All of the news is garbage anymore. Look at the latest Brian Williams thing, the NBC staging of the exploding Chevy pickup, CNN’s bogus poison gas in Viet Nam story or the Fareed Zakaria farce, or that CBS Froot Loop Dan Rather and his multiple incidents of being off the wall.
If Edward R. Murrow was alive today he’d probably off himself after about 5 minutes of what is alleged to be news. Following the burial he would be spinning furiously in his grave.