War Texting : Hackers Unlock Car Doors Via SMS
Jul 28, 2011
War Texting : Hackers Unlock Car Doors Via SMS Don Bailey and Mathew Solnik, Two hackers have found a way to unlock cars that use remote control and telemetry systems like BMW Assist, GM OnStar, Ford Sync, and Hyundai Blue Link. These systems communicate with the automaker's remote servers via standard standard mobile networks like GSM and CDMA — and with a clever bit of reverse engineering, the hackers were able to pose as these servers and communicate directly with a car's on-board computer via " war texting " — a riff on "war driving," the act of finding open wireless networks. Don Bailey and Mathew Solnik, both employees of iSEC Partners, will deliver their findings at next week's Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas in a briefing entitled " War Texting: Identifying and Interacting with Devices on the Telephone Network. " The exact details of the attack won't be disclosed until the affected manufacturers have had a chance to fix their systems, and the hackers are not expected ...