The brake system is pretty well secured from the infotainment system, exactly because infotaintment systems are often not 100% secure.
They could have tried to go after the brake system, but I doubt they would have been successful.
The brake system is pretty well secured from the infotainment system, exactly because infotaintment systems are often not 100% secure.
Actually, critical systems like brakes are on a separate CAN bus than the normal crap to prevent a DoS attack from making you crash. However, both CAN busses are connected to the ECU. Hacking an ECU via CAN bus [illmatics.com] isn't a new trick.
They could have tried to go after the brake system, but I doubt they would have been successful.
They aren't blackhats, so attacking the ECU was never their objective. Instead, they successfully demonstrated significant vulnerabilities in the wireless systems which could enable remote attacks.
Researchers hinted they could have also went after the cars' braking and acceleration system, but stopped due to fear of breaking VW's intellectual property on those systems.
This is yet another example of how strong IP laws can help to protect a nations' citizens from evildoers.
Other than a feed of +12V, a signal line from the steering wheel controls, ground, and maybe a data signal from a rear-view camera, why does the "infotainment" system need to talk to the rest of the car at all?
The most pragmatic reason is that wiring harnesses in cars are complex and expensive, and replacing a bunch of point to point wires with a data bus makes the car cheaper and easier to build. And once you have everything connected to a data bus, why not put the UI for many of those items on the thing with the biggest display and most available controls, like the infotainment system.
And my car has lots of settings that you may not think are worthwhile, but that I appreciate. Like to unlock all 4 doors when
They could have tried to go after the brake system, but I doubt they would have been successful.
The brake system is pretty well secured from the infotainment system, exactly because infotaintment systems are often not 100% secure.
Actually, critical systems like brakes are on a separate CAN bus than the normal crap to prevent a DoS attack from making you crash. However, both CAN busses are connected to the ECU. Hacking an ECU via CAN bus [illmatics.com] isn't a new trick.
They could have tried to go after the brake system, but I doubt they would have been successful.
They aren't blackhats, so attacking the ECU was never their objective. Instead, they successfully demonstrated significant vulnerabilities in the wireless systems which could enable remote attacks.
Researchers hinted they could have also went after the cars' braking and acceleration system, but stopped due to fear of breaking VW's intellectual property on those systems.
This is yet another example of how strong IP laws can help to protect a nations' citizens from evildoers.
Other than a feed of +12V, a signal line from the steering wheel controls, ground, and maybe a data signal from a rear-view camera, why does the "infotainment" system need to talk to the rest of the car at all?
The most pragmatic reason is that wiring harnesses in cars are complex and expensive, and replacing a bunch of point to point wires with a data bus makes the car cheaper and easier to build. And once you have everything connected to a data bus, why not put the UI for many of those items on the thing with the biggest display and most available controls, like the infotainment system.
And my car has lots of settings that you may not think are worthwhile, but that I appreciate. Like to unlock all 4 doors when