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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 KilroySmith on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:42AM

    by KilroySmith (2113) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:42AM (#214645)

    You're absolutely correct, but they got lazy and got bit.

    In our $3 peripheral, the OTA signed blobs are also encrypted. Admittedly, the AES-128 encryption key is global to all parts, and could be exposed; but it provides an excellent level of obfuscation. Imagine trying to determine what CPU our peripheral runs when you're trying to do visual analysis of hex dumps of encrypted blobs...

    If [Micah] is able to load unsigned blobs (which is what has to happen, unless [Micah] has broken a rational PK encryption system), then the security of this system was never taken seriously. There may be a surface layer of security, but that's about it.

    Too bad you posted AC. You seem knowledgeable, and I would have enjoyed adding you to a friend list.

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