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Researchers say they have found a way to hack an internet-enabled carwash and make it "attack" users.
They warned criminals could easily exploit the Laserwash car washes, making their doors close too early or their roller arms crush the tops of cars.
They also claimed the manufacturer PDQ ignored warnings about the risks for two years.
PDQ said it was urgently investigating the issues.
Laserwash installations can be remotely monitored and controlled by their owners via a web-based user interface.
However, in a presentation at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, Billy Rios of security firm Whitescope and Jonathan Butts from the International Federation for Information Processing showed how easily the system could be hijacked.
Firstly, they warned that Microsoft no longer supported the washers' Windows control systems, so hackers might be able to exploit hidden loopholes.
More worryingly, they managed to hack into an actual carwash by using the default password "12345".
An Anonymous Coward submitted a link to a related article from 2015:
http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities---threats/hackin-at-the-car-wash-yeah/d/d-id/1319156
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:26AM (3 children)
What precautions can be taken in a hypothetical future autonomous car, where all controls have been removed from you, and you are just a sack of meat being hurtled along at high speed by a computer? Most likely running software written by the cheapest outsourced contractors they could find. I guess you can try taking up religion.
My point is that you can only take so much precautions, when surrounded by idiots who shove net connected computers into every orifice they find with no thought nor concern for the consequences or security implications of doing so. Many of these systems are not even open source/hardware, so you can't even have a look inside and see what they are doing. You have to trust some unknown third party to think they have your best interests at heart, when usually profit is their main interest.
If things keep going in the direction they are, one day you will have to assume pretty much every object you touch every day, from your car, to your house, to your phone, washing machine, fridge, etc... is "evil". Quite dystopian when you think about it. Reminds me of those cyberpunk stories I used to read as a kid.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:50PM (2 children)
A strong magnet being pushed very very fast through a coil can make those evil things go belly up quickly ;-)
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday July 31 2017, @12:30AM (1 child)
True, but then they won't function, and will be pretty useless at whatever they needed to do in the first place. Equivalent items but without the IoT crap would be hard to find (if they are available on the market at all, you might have to try to find vintage equivalents second hand).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday July 31 2017, @02:44PM
It also means no one else can use IoT in that location and will have to do something else or suffer no function. And that equipment taking part in mass surveillance will have a hard time functioning or be cost driven out of a workable economics model due to protection issues.
Oh and think of all the Facebook drone spies that will be disabled just like that, instantly ;)