Tesla Model X gets hacked through new relay attack, Tesla says it is pushing a patch - Electrek:
A hacker managed to develop a new key cloning relay attack for Tesla vehicles and demonstrated it on a Tesla Model X.
Tesla was informed of the new attack and it is reportedly pushing a new patch for it.
Thefts of Tesla vehicles are quite rare in North America, but in Europe, they have some more sophisticated thieves that managed a string of Tesla vehicle thefts through relay attacks, and most vehicles haven't been recovered.
In response to those attacks, Tesla started rolling out extra layers of security with an "improved cryptography" key fob and optional "PIN to Drive" feature.
Now Lennert Wouters, a security researcher at Belgian university KU Leuven, claims to have put together a new series of hacks that can get around the new improved cryptography in the key fob.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday November 30 2020, @06:23AM (1 child)
English. Learn it!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @09:09PM
Unfortunately the very old and innocent term "hack" or "hacker", that used to mean "tinker" or "tinkerer", has come into common usage as meaning "cracked", broken into. Wish that wasn't the case, but even most of the tech community have morphed its meaning into a negative.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday November 30 2020, @08:37AM (4 children)
I have never seen a Tesla in person. I think they're quite rare in general.
In order for thieves to steal one, they have to want it for some reason. Cannot be joy riders since the cars never get recovered. Rich people can just order one online, so the arabs have no need to blackmarket these cars. Maybe a dirty repair shop that steal them for parts to repair other teslas? That doesn't make sense to me though. From what I understand, is if there is a problem with your tesla, you can call them and, they will send a repairman with replacement parts. Maybe value in recycling the battery cells? Like the current catalytic converters. Maybe it's some kinda insurance fraud.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday November 30 2020, @12:03PM (1 child)
Total Tesla worldwide sales, all-time:
985,154
(Bear in mind that some of those will no longer be on the road anyway).
Total worldwide car production annually:
92.8 million
Total worldwide cars-on-the-road:
1 billion.
Tesla represent far less than 1% of annual sales, and less than 0.01% of all the cars on the road.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 30 2020, @12:44PM
"Tesla represent far less than 1% of annual sales, and less than 0.01% of all the cars on the road."
But perhaps they have a much higher doubling rate than the rest?
Thinking about a B grade Tesla hacking moooovie.
1) FInd a major bug that only works when they download new s/w.
2) FInd a minor hack that requires them to download new s/w.
3) Quietly 'own' a bunch of mobile sensor platforms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 30 2020, @02:46PM
> Maybe a dirty repair shop that steal them for parts to repair other teslas?
I think this is most likely, might even be a "clean" repair shop that buys parts which have been laundered by the thieves and worked into the supply chain. I've heard that T tries very hard to control aftermarket and 3rd party replacement parts, and keeps the prices high.
Also, because of their high performance, I suspect that T cars are involved in at least their share (if not more) of accidents. Could be similar to early Audi Quattro where inexperienced drivers found they could really go fast in slippery conditions (AWD, wheeee!), not realizing that the brakes are about the same on all cars?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 30 2020, @03:12PM
Teslas are still a luxury brand, so it makes sense that you wouldn't see many unless you lived in an area with a relatively high average income. I see a lot in the Tri-State area around NYC, and am seeing more all the time as people buy the lower-end Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys.
Model Xs are the most expensive so there's probably enough of a delta there to justify stealing and fencing them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 30 2020, @06:40PM (4 children)
"Thefts of Tesla vehicles are quite rare in North America, but in Europe, they have some more sophisticated thieves"
European blue collar thieves are more sophisticated than American blue collar thieves? I didn't know that.
Thinking about this for a minute it makes sense.
Europe has better lower education and the U.S. has better higher education. Since lower education is more mandatory blue collar thieves are more likely to have been through the lower educational system and hence the European blue collar thieves are more sophisticated.
Since upper education is more optional blue collar thieves are less likely to have an upper education and those who do have an upper education are less likely to become blue collar thieves (they are more likely to have a job/career and if they do engage in crime it's more likely to be white collar crime).
So the blue collar thieves in the U.S. are not as educated as the blue collar thieves in Europe.
The white collar thieves in the U.S. are better educated than the ones in Europe.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday November 30 2020, @11:33PM (3 children)
Most of the lower educations programs I've come into contact with in the US had no electrical/electronics training. Thus, the skills to compromise a Tesla are not gifted to the future sophisticated crooks during their mandatory portion of education. Such skills are gained via college (engineering/maybe computer science, trade school, or military (for the lucky service members in a rate/MES and billet fortunate enough to be taught such things). Even then, there is some extracurricular self-education required to glue together several of these concepts, like flashing a microcontroller/SBC with custom firmware, using a spectrum analyzer to capture signals over the air, process those signals, and determine a correct signal to spoof the key fob and gain access to the car. Regrettably, Tesla underestimated the ingenuity of the EU thieves and did not initially implement a stronger security solution.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2020, @01:23AM (2 children)
So either the U.S. needs to upgrade its lower educational system so that we can have better blue collar thieves or Europe needs to downgrade their lower education so they can have worse blue collar thieves ...
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday December 01 2020, @03:29AM (1 child)
While I have no statistics to back this up, I assume less educated thieves resort to more violent means.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01 2020, @12:59PM
So we need to educate our thieves so that they can find less violent ways to steal from us.