Vehicle Computer Security

Jeff Smith

Am I safe operating my computer controlled vehicle?

Most people don’t understand the computers that run their cars

Many people feel a virus could potentially infect their car and “take over”

Disastrous effects if this were to happen

What are these computers that are so common in modern vehicles?

Two categories Vehicle Systems Control (VSC) Navigation Tools

No interaction between the two systems

Vehicle Systems Control (VSC)

Control the operations involved in the mechanical duties of the vehicle Engine Control Module (ECM) Anti-Lock Brake Systems (ABS) Ride height control Four-Wheel-Drive Engagement Transmission Shift Point Determination Horsepower Delivery Road Hazard Analysis

How VSC Work

ROM computers that contain no RAM to run applications

Simply perform tasks written into them and report errors

These errors are read through a port underneath the dash

If changes need to me made to computer, an entire new unit must be installed

VSC Vulnerabilities

To compromise these systems one would have to do the following… Know how the system is written and rewrite a

new process that did the newly desired task Locate current computers and replace with new

unit

While possible, the attack would have to be vehicle specific and very specialized

Navigation Systems

Find directions Locate Stores Endless opportunity with interaction between

vehicle, cell phones, and GPS

How They Work

Many variations, most use GPS to run the navigation systems

Recently, these systems have gained the capability to connect through cell phones and even the internet to run the navigation systems

Navigation Systems Vulnerabilities .

Open to a wide range of vulnerabilities Through use of cell phones and internet,

attacks have various platforms to attack from Main thing to realize, if an attack was

successful, the worst-case scenario would be an “error” message on the screen

What is being done to prevent attacks?

From the beginning of computer controlled vehicles, engineers have realized the major effects of an infected system and have designed with this in mind Do not give any capabilities of VSC computers

to run outside programs, virus or not Give no connection between navigation systems

and the VSC Provide little access to the VSC to prevent

tampering with

In the Future?

Vehicle manufacturers are looking into the idea of making the VSC computers interact with the internet

This would open up huge opportunity for systems to become compromised

Many advances in internet security will have to occur before this is safe enough to become possible

Sources

http://www.subaru-global.com/about/parts/10.html http://www.autoblog.com/entry/1234000243032355/ http://www.scmagazine.com/news/index.cfm?

fuseaction=newsDetails&newsUID=c794e3d0-7b09-4329-af07-c65dfd75fcd6&newsType=News

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/automobile_viru_1.html

http://vmyths.com/hoax.cfm?id=284&page=3