Can you hijack a drive by wire car remotely?
 

I don't expect it...but if it WERE to come out that a plane was hijacked by some guy with a laptop how long would it take for people with drive by wire cars to start to feel nervous?

I'll let other more knowledgeable people add tech info, but here's my take on this...

The drive-by-wire on a car is basically use an electronic throttle control. Instead of a cable from your pedal to a carburetor or throttle, you have a position sensor at the pedal that sends a signal via a WIRE to the ECM which in turn sends a signal by a WIRE to the throttle position control motor that changes the throttle (e.g. opens up the flap for lack of a more technical term). You can't control it remotely, it's hard wired, no radio frequency signal etc., is used to connect the devices. So lets compare it to a garage door. That can use a radio frequency to control the motor (it will receive and respond to the signal) so you can hijack them pretty easily. But if your garage door did not have the ability to respond to a signal and ONLY responded to the commands given from the mechanical switch on your wall through a wire to the motor - lot tougher to hijack.

Now there are controls on the car that DO respond to radio frequency such as the door locks, remote starts, etc. In my humble opinion, those functions could be hijacked. Also they are obviously susceptible to EMP. But that wouldn't give you control, that would just shut the car off. The way I see it, the only way you could gain control of my car (other than say, shutting it off or opening my doors) would be to gain control of the car physically ahead of time and interfere with the ECM function including to put in place something that would allow you to remotely interface (e.g. a receiver). Without that in place and me just driving down the road? I don't really see how you could gain control.

I suspect airplanes are MUCH more complex than cars or garage doors. Perhaps they can be accessed and I'm open to the discussions from the folks on this site as to how that might be done. Of course...it might change my mind about all my business flights...


***edit*** ok - I just thought about onstar and now I'm wondering...

angela

It has been done as a demonstaration. They could steer the car and use the throttle and brakes. The driver had no contorl.

I am sure Google can find the story.

Cyber threats targeting cars, security of your cars could be breached - Autoweek
http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf
"CAN packets contain no
authenticator fields—or even any source identifier fields—
meaning that any component can indistinguishably send a
packet to any other component. This means that any single
compromised component can be used to control all of the
other components on that bus, provided those components
themselves do not implement defenses"
yes-

I think they did it with a Fordy Sync system, I believe it was Popular Mechanics that did the demo. They were trying to point out the inherent weaknesses of the systems that combine the entertainment computer systems with the cars engine and systems computers. In the case of the Sync system, the two computers are the same and PM was able to hack into it via a cell equipped laptop and the extent of their control was remarkable. The vehicle did not have electric steer so they could not directionally control, however all throttle and engine management functions could be manipulated as well as brakes and much more. They shut down individual cylinders, applied one or all brakes, affected the light control and a lot more.

Are cars that do not have OnStar, Sync, etc., incapable of remote manipulation?

Kind of creeps me out to think about the Sync being hacked and what was accessible for control especially given the issues that Sync had when it came out just plain working right at all...

Sheesh guys, the more I know about this stuff, the more I'm diggin' old carbureted 911's...

angela

All of the examples that I am aware of so far require access to the car. The article that stands out most prominently in my mind involved a guy in the back seat with a laptop that had a wired connection to the OBDII diagnostic port.

For now...I have a bluetooth dongle for my ODBII port that can wirelessly talk to my laptop, I use it for diagnosing codes.

I think it would be a very, very short hop to get everything wireless, especially with so many cars having wifi and/or satellite connections. How hard would it be to get a couple guys hired with some car dealership and then they have access to all the cars. Hell, I was a detailer at a lot back in college and had almost unlimited access to all the car for as long as I wanted. Not that screwed with the cars systems but it wouldn't have been difficult.

yes--

if your radio has blue tooth, you can send attack packets via Bluetooth to the system you want to access-

a box beside the road with a laptop could infect cars during rush hour with a virus

completely doable today--

Such as Google self-driving cars?
Or a Prius?
Or Princess Diana's BMW?

This is why I like my older cars...

http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf

this is a report on a study of such a thing---

it will answer your questions and make you think of some others like "how can I stop the traffic in a specific place and time?? "

Good idea for bank robbers and other criminals.
Like 'The Italian Job', except integrated by gub'ment.

Can you hijack a drive by wire car remotely?

I am convinced that any security system invented by humans can be defeated by humans. There is already a virus out that can establish itself on any computer, connected to the internet or not, inerfere with the computer in the background and report home occasionally:

https://public.gdatasoftware.com/Web/Content/INT/Blog/2014/02_2014/documents/GData_Uroburos_RedPaper_EN_v1.pdf

I don't think it would be worth doing this vs. good old fashioned wet-work at this point. High value targets worth the effort probably don't have inbound connection capability (political figure limos, etc..) ... ...but if you could get a receiver plugged in to the ODBII, why not.

At first I thought well you could shut it off only... ...In fact using modified stability control and some good programming you probably could accelerate, brake, and steer once you got into the system.

...some of these lay dormant on USB and other memory devices too. So even if your local network was NEVER connected to the internet you can still have data stolen. Program lies dormant, infects USB. USB infects internal only network. Network PC then infects other USB devices. Other devices taken offsite and transmit data back when connected to internet..

What I can see as the biggest threat is car theft. Hack the system and have the car drive itself to your chop shop. Chop up car or ship overseas.

I can see the manufacturers responding to the threat of a hijacking by just putting in a switch that put the car in limp mode and allows the driver to positively take over. Of course Airbus decided the pilot does not need to be able to override the computer so maybe not.