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posted by janrinok on Monday July 27 2015, @04:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the can't-they-fix-it-by-wireless? dept.

Fiat Chrysler's bad week just got even worse: the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recalled 1.4 million of the manufacturer's cars after a dangerous software flaw was revealed just days ago.

Renowned hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek warned on Tuesday of a ridiculous vuln in the computer systems built into Fiat Chrysler cars: the flaw can be exploited by an attacker to wirelessly take control of the engine, brakes and entertainment system.

The cars connect to the internet via Fiat Chrysler's uConnect cellular network, and thus can be accessed and tampered with from miles away by anyone who knows the vehicle's public IP address. No authentication is required. The US network has been attempting to block incoming connections, we're told. The motor giant has produced a software fix for the root cause of the vulnerability – unfortunately, the update has to be manually installed via a USB stick plugged into the car.


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  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday July 27 2015, @05:02PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday July 27 2015, @05:02PM (#214409) Homepage

    tampered with from miles away by anyone who knows the vehicle's public IP address.

    What is this I don't even

    If that's really correct - only one of the articles says it's a public IP address - aren't they doing it completely wrong?

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday July 27 2015, @07:09PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday July 27 2015, @07:09PM (#214475) Journal

    First you have to realize that this only applies to those cars that have built-in wifi hotspots for all your portable devices.
    This is accomplished by buying a data-plan for the car (which comes with a 4G data plan and a sim, and a monthly bill).
    Very few people buy this because it duplicates their cell plan, and provides very little additional capabilities other than keeping the kids in the back seat happy.

    But if you did use this, you would certainly want to be able access outside web sites, email, notifications. I can't come up with a single reason why you would want to allow inbound connections for ANY thing. Just like your cell phone does everything with outbound connections only, there is no reason for the car to ever have a public IP. (It should all be behind a firewall. It should all be behind a NAT. )

    But if it is ipv6 capable, isn't EVERYTHING public to some extent?

    So your risk is only if you bought a car with this option, (it was available on my 2012 Chrysler, but I just couldn't see paying another data plan for the car).
    Then you have to reveal your car's IP to someone. Which might happen with something as simple as an email showing headers etc.
    So the risk is small.

    Still Fiat-Chrysler deserve the public bitchslap for missing this. (Not to mention the huge fine they just received and the forced buy-back of Ram Trucks, for playing fast and loose with the recall process.

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    • (Score: 2) by jcross on Monday July 27 2015, @08:53PM

      by jcross (4009) on Monday July 27 2015, @08:53PM (#214530)

      I believe the guys who discovered the vulnerability were pulling the IP addresses of cars using a burner phone on the same cellular network as the cars (it was Sprint IIRC). From reading the Wired article I assumed that traffic from both phones and cars was going through some common point where it could be intercepted, but it was not clear how that worked exactly.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 27 2015, @09:20PM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday July 27 2015, @09:20PM (#214548) Journal

        That's not how I read it.
        The put a phone, (iphone I believe), on the in-car wifi, and used that to determine the IP of both the in-car wifi network and the external IP, by connecting back to their own remote computer. The did not use the cellular network on this phone - just the wifi connection from the in-car wifi.

        Even that should not give in-bound access. So unless the added compromised software on the phone, inbound connections should have been rejected.

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        • (Score: 2) by jcross on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:36AM

          by jcross (4009) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:36AM (#214642)
          The Wired article clearly described them sniffing vulnerable systems from all over the country, which I don't think would be possible with the method you describe.

          Uconnect computers are linked to the Internet by Sprint’s cellular network, and only other Sprint devices can talk to them. So Miller has a cheap Kyocera Android phone connected to his battered MacBook. He’s using the burner phone as a Wi-Fi hot spot, scouring for targets using its thin 3G bandwidth. A set of GPS coordinates, along with a vehicle identification number, make, model, and IP address, appears on the laptop screen. It’s a Dodge Ram. Miller plugs its GPS coordinates into Google Maps to reveal that it’s cruising down a highway in Texarkana, Texas. He keeps scanning, and the next vehicle to appear on his screen is a Jeep Cherokee driving around a highway cloverleaf between San Diego and Anaheim, California. Then he locates a Dodge Durango, moving along a rural road somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When I ask him to keep scanning, he hesitates. Seeing the actual, mapped locations of these unwitting strangers’ vehicles—and knowing that each one is vulnerable to their remote attack—unsettles him.

    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:17AM

      by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:17AM (#214613)

      Still if you did select the option, what it10t thought it a good idea to make the car's operation computer have a wireless connection? Or for that matter a hard wired connection to the wireless modem?

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