Comment by gcb0
7 years ago
people in this thread have a crazy assumption of in-car network security.
leave this thread with one single knowledge: cars have a single canbus network, with zero security. your radio, turn signal, engine intake computer, are all talking in the open over a single data wire.
anything you plug to that network can listen /talk to anything, and instead of security you have a priority bit (or a few of bits, don't remember) that is completely self regulated by each device.
Single network? All manufactures i've worked with in recent times have tons of internal networks and buses. Some are more isolated than others, eg connected infotainment and OBD often being behind some kind of secure gateway to not have direct access to engine network. If anyone is aware of manufacturers that don't do this please shout out.
But yeah, otherwise the data buses are kindof assumed to be internal and only contain trusted input, only recently some cars are now also starting to have cryptographically signed packets. It's really not such a big deal until you mix connected ecus with secure ecus or install cheap third party stuff yourself on same network, if someone could physically access the data bus there are other more dangerous things they could do anyway.
In other words, the 1990s called, with "everything is now network-exposed, surely it's all secured by something more than wishful thinking. Right?"
Tesla is an exception to this: it has a chip that converts high level commands, like stop to low level CAN commands (stopping slowly)
it's still going ultimately to the can: game over just the same.
the problem is not known systems failing. it's malicious actors that are also on the can network.
Did you look at the white hat presentation about Tesla from years ago? It's not that hard to take over the Tesla entertainment system, but the security was based on the command translator chip instead of securing the entertainment system.