CAN Hacking Tools, 20 USD to hack a car remotely

Pierluigi Paganini February 09, 2014

Two security researchers have designed a kit to hack a car made up of a tiny device, smaller than your Smartphone, they called it CAN Hacking Tools (CHT)

Imagine that a hacker wants to hijack your car hack remotely, the thought is scaring but it’s reality!

The high level of technological penetration into the objects that surround us, is making life more comfortable, but is enlarging our surface of attack. Paradigms like the Internet of Things promises miracles, but also open the door to new opportunity for the hacking community.

The security researchers Javier Vazquez-Vidal and Alberto Garcia Illera have designed a kit to hack a car made up of a tiny device smaller than your Smartphone, they called it CAN Hacking Tools (CHT) and they will present it at the Black Hat Asia security conference in Singapore next month.

Hack a ‘car has never been so easy and cheaper, the Kit costs less than $20, but is far capable to take away car’s entire control from windows and headlights to its steering and brakes.

We saw in the past that through the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus it is possible to access to every function of the car, including control locks, steering and brakes, so the researchers decided to exploit it.

“small gadget they built for less than $20 that can be physically connected to a car’s internal network to inject malicious commands affecting everything from its windows and headlights to its steering and brakes. ” reported Forbes.

The CAN Hacking Tools was designed to inject malicious code from CAN ports and send wireless command from a PC nearby.

“It can take five minutes or less to hook it up and then walk away,” “We could wait one minute or one year, and then trigger it to do whatever we have programmed it to do.” says Vazquez Vidal.

Javier Vazquez-Vidal and Alberto Garcia Illera have tested their CAN Hacking Tools device on four different vehicles and “their tricks ranged from mere mischief like switching off headlights, setting off alarms, and rolling windows up and down to accessing anti-lock brake or emergency brake systems that could potentially cause a sudden stop in traffic.”

The actual version of CHT is capable to communicate only via Bluetooth, but the researchers are already upgrading it to use a GSM cellular radio that would make possible the control of the device installed on the car from miles away.

“In some cases, the attacks required gaining under-the-hood access or opening the car’s trunk, while in other instances, they say they could simply crawl under the car to plant the device. For now, the tool communicates via only Bluetooth, limiting the range of any wireless attack to a few feet. But by the time the two researchers present their research in Singapore, they say they’ll upgrade it to use a GSM cellular radio instead that would make it possible to control the device from miles away.”

As remarked by the researcher a car has his network that today lack of any security mechanism.

“All the ingredients of their tool are off-the-shelf components, so that even if the device is discovered, it wouldn’t necessarily provide clues as to who planted it. It’s totally untraceable” “A car is a mini network,”“And right now there’s no security implemented.”

It’s time for security by design!

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – CAN Hacking Tools, hacking cars)

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