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Category — Smart Car Hacking
European Police Arrest a Gang That Hacked Wireless Key Fobs to Steal Cars

European Police Arrest a Gang That Hacked Wireless Key Fobs to Steal Cars

Oct 18, 2022
Law enforcement authorities in France, in collaboration with Spain and Latvia, have disrupted a cybercrime ring that leveraged a hacking tool to steal cars without having to use a physical key fob. "The criminals targeted vehicles with keyless entry and start systems, exploiting the technology to get into the car and drive away," Europol  said  in a press statement. The coordinated operation, which took place on October 10, 2022, resulted in the arrest of 31 suspects from across 22 locations in the three nations, including software developers, its resellers, and the car thieves who used the tool to break into vehicles. Also confiscated by the officials as part of the arrests were criminal assets worth €1,098,500, not to mention an internet domain that allegedly advertised the service online. Per Europol, the criminals are said to have singled out keyless vehicles from two unnamed French car manufacturers. The perpetrators then used the fraudulent package to replace the ...
Chinese Hackers Find Over a Dozen Vulnerabilities in BMW Cars

Chinese Hackers Find Over a Dozen Vulnerabilities in BMW Cars

May 23, 2018
Chinese security researchers have discovered more than a dozen vulnerabilities in the onboard compute units of BMW cars, some of which can be exploited remotely to compromise a vehicle. The security flaws have been discovered during a year-long security audit conducted by researchers from Keen Security Lab, a cybersecurity research unit of Chinese firm Tencent, between January 2017 and February 2018. In March 2018, the team responsibly disclosed 14 different vulnerabilities directly to the BMW Group, which affects its vehicles since at least 2012. These are the same group of researchers who have previously found multiple vulnerabilities in various in-car modules used by Tesla , that could have been exploited to achieve remote controls on a target car. Now that BMW started rolling out patches for the vulnerabilities to car owners, the researchers have gone public with a 26-page technical report [ PDF ] describing their findings, though they avoided publishing some important t...
The Future of Network Security: Automated Internal and External Pentesting

The Future of Network Security: Automated Internal and External Pentesting

Dec 10, 2024Vulnerability / Perimeter Security
In today's rapidly evolving threat landscape, safeguarding your organization against cyberattacks is more critical than ever. Traditional penetration testing (pentesting), while effective, often falls short due to its high costs, resource requirements, and infrequent implementation. Automated internal and external network pentesting is a game-changing solution, empowering organizations to stay ahead of attackers with cost-effective, frequent, and thorough security assessments. Strengthen Your Defenses: The Role of Internal and External Pentests  Effective cybersecurity requires addressing threats from both inside and outside your organization. Automated solutions streamline this process, enabling IT teams to implement a holistic and proactive defense strategy. Internal Pentesting: Securing the Core Internal pentesting simulates an attacker operating within your network, exposing vulnerabilities such as insider threats, compromised credentials, or breaches through physical or ...
Unpatchable Flaw in Modern Cars Allows Hackers to Disable Safety Features

Unpatchable Flaw in Modern Cars Allows Hackers to Disable Safety Features

Aug 17, 2017
Today, many automobiles companies are offering vehicles that run on the mostly drive-by-wire system, which means a majority of car's functions—from instrument cluster to steering, brakes, and accelerator—are electronically controlled. No doubt these auto-control systems make your driving experience much better, but at the same time, they also increase the risk of getting hacked. Car Hacking is a hot topic, though it is not new for security researchers who hack cars. A few of them have already demonstrated how to hijack a car remotely , how to disable car's crucial functions like airbags, and even how to remotely steal cars . Now, security researchers have discovered a new hacking trick that can allow attackers to disable airbags and other safety systems of the connected cars, affecting a large number of vendors and vehicle models. A team of researchers from Trend Micro's Forward-looking Threat Research (FTR) team, in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano and...
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Self-Driving Cars Can Be Hacked By Just Putting Stickers On Street Signs

Self-Driving Cars Can Be Hacked By Just Putting Stickers On Street Signs

Aug 09, 2017
Car Hacking is a hot topic, though it's not new for researchers to hack cars. Previously they had demonstrated how to hijack a car remotely , how to disable car's crucial functions like airbags, and even how to steal cars . But the latest car hacking trick doesn't require any extra ordinary skills to accomplished. All it takes is a simple sticker onto a sign board to confuse any self-driving car and cause accident. Isn't this so dangerous? A team of researchers from the University of Washington demonstrated how anyone could print stickers off at home and put them on a few road signs to convince "most" autonomous cars into misidentifying road signs and cause accidents. According to the researchers, image recognition system used by most autonomous cars fails to read road sign boards if they are altered by placing stickers or posters over part or the whole road sign board. In a research paper , titled " Robust Physical-World Attacks on Machine...
Court Documents Reveal How Feds Spied On Connected Cars For 15 Years

Court Documents Reveal How Feds Spied On Connected Cars For 15 Years

Jan 16, 2017
It's not always necessary to break into your computer or smartphone to spy on you. Today all are day-to-day devices are becoming more connected to networks than ever to add convenience and ease to daily activities. But here's what we forget: These connected devices can be turned against us because we are giving companies, hackers, and law enforcement a large number of entry points to break into our network. These connected devices can also be a great boon for law enforcement that can listen and track us everywhere. Let's take the recent example of 2016 Arkansas murder case where Amazon was asked to hand over audio recordings from a suspect's Echo. However, that was not the first case where feds asked any company to hand over data from a suspect's connected device, as they have long retrieved such information from connected cars. According to court documents obtained by Forbes , United States federal agencies have a 15-year history of " Cartapping ...
Researchers Show How to Steal Tesla Car by Hacking into Owner's Smartphone

Researchers Show How to Steal Tesla Car by Hacking into Owner's Smartphone

Nov 26, 2016
New technology is always a little scary, so are Smart Cars. From GPS system and satellite radio to wireless locks, steering, brakes, and accelerator, today vehicles are more connected to networks than ever, and so they are more hackable than ever. It's not new for security researchers to hack connected cars. Previously they had demonstrated how to hijack a car remotely , and how to disable car's crucial functions like airbags by exploiting security bugs affecting significant automobiles. Now this time, researchers at Norway-based security firm Promon have demonstrated how easy it is for hackers to steal Tesla cars through the company's official Android application that many car owners use to interact with their vehicle. Two months ago, Chinese security researchers from Keen Lab managed to hack a Tesla Model S , which allowed them to control a car in both Parking and Driving Mode from 12 miles away. However, Promon researchers have taken an entirely different app...
Hackers take Remote Control of Tesla's Brakes and Door locks from 12 Miles Away

Hackers take Remote Control of Tesla's Brakes and Door locks from 12 Miles Away

Sep 20, 2016
Next time when you find yourself hooked up behind the wheel, make sure your car is actually in your control. Hackers can remotely hijack your car and even control its brakes from 12 miles away. Car hacking is a hot topic. Today many automobiles companies have been offering vehicles with the majority of functions electronically controlled, from instrument cluster to steering, brakes, and accelerator. These auto-control electronic systems not only improve your driving experience but at the same time also increase the risk of getting hacked. The most recent car hacking has been performed on Tesla Model S by a team of security researchers from Keen Security Lab, demonstrating how they were able to hijack the Tesla car by exploiting multiple flaws in the latest models running the most recent software. The team said the hacks worked on multiple models of Tesla and believed they would work across all marques. "We have discovered multiple security vulnerabilities and suc...
Car Thieves Can Unlock 100 Million Volkswagens With A Simple Wireless Hack

Car Thieves Can Unlock 100 Million Volkswagens With A Simple Wireless Hack

Aug 11, 2016
In Brief Some 100 Million cars made by Volkswagen are vulnerable to a key cloning attack that could allow thieves to unlock the doors of most popular cars remotely through a wireless signal, according to new research. Next time when you leave your car in a parking lot, make sure you don't leave your valuables in it, especially if it's a Volkswagen. What's more worrisome? The new attack applies to practically every car Volkswagen has sold since 1995. There are two distinct vulnerabilities present in almost every car sold by Volkswagen group after 1995, including models from Audi, Skoda, Fiat, Citroen, Ford and Peugeot. Computer scientists from the University of Birmingham and the German engineering firm Kasper & Oswald plan to present their research [ PDF ] later this week at the Usenix security conference in Austin, Texas. Attack 1 — Using Arduino-based RF Transceiver (Cost $40) The first attack can be carried out using a cheap radio device that can...
Flaw Allows Attackers to Remotely Tamper with BMW's In-Car Infotainment System

Flaw Allows Attackers to Remotely Tamper with BMW's In-Car Infotainment System

Jul 07, 2016
The Internet of things or connected devices are the next big concerns, as more Internet connectivity means more access points which mean more opportunities for hackers. When it comes to the threat to Internet of Things, Car Hacking is a hot topic. Since many automobiles companies are offering cars that run mostly on the drive-by-wire system, a majority of functions are electronically controlled, like instrument cluster, steering, brakes, and accelerator. No doubt these auto-control systems in vehicles improve your driving experience, but at the same time increase the risk of getting hacked. Recently, security researcher Benjamin Kunz Mejri  have disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities that reside the official BMW web domain and ConnectedDrive portal and the worst part: the vulnerabilities remain unpatched and open for hackers. Benjamin from Vulnerability-Labs has discovered both the vulnerabilities. The first one is a VIN ( Vehicle Identification Number ) session vulner...
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