Professional speech

CAR HACKING

Hacking cars may seem a distant threat right now, but a dangerous “Hindenburg moment” could be nearing, due to the advent of autonomous cars, two researchers with the US automotive guide publication Kelley Blue Book have warned.

Hindenburg moments – potential life taking catastrophes – occur as new technologies take an initial leap forward, but risks have not been foreseen or adequately addressed.

You might be behind the wheel, but increasingly, computers control your car’s every function.

Microprocessors direct braking, acceleration and even the horn these days.

NEED

Hackers are now able to breach the security of many modern cars on the road. This is due to the heavy reliance of computers in many new vehicles. While in general cars are getting safer thanks to crash testing and new crash avoidance technologies they are now open to a new type of threat.

In a video on the website Wired two hackers are able to remotely control a newer Jeep Cherokee by gaining access to the infotainment system built into the car. They are able to access the car over the internet since the car maintains a cellular connection for some data.

Once the hackers get into the infotainment system they have access to many important functions of the vehicle. This includes minor things like displaying things on the screen and turning up the volume of the radio. More significant is that it also gives them access to critical functions of the car such as controlling the steering, disabling the brakes, or cutting power to the engine while on a highway with no shoulder.

Hackers with ill intent could cause serious injury or even death to anyone on the road by controlling newer internet connected vehicles.

SOLUTION

According to a survey conducted by Kelly Blue Book, 33% of those surveyed saw cyber attacks on cars as a serious problem and 58% of those surveyed don’t believe that there is a permanent solution to car hacking. Despite the always changing technology there are still ways the car makers can stay up to with security and keep cars secure. There are a few different areas where we can focus including:

· Car makers

· Consumers

· Changes to vehicles

Car Makers

The car makers can make changes themselves within their business. First off businesses should hire a Chief Security Office to oversee the security not only within the company, but in the cars and software in their systems. Also it is highly suggested that a information security department is created or increased in size to work on making the cars and software more secure. Also as part of this department the companies hire white hat hackers that try to hack into the cars and try and find vulnerabilities in the cars before they are even released to the market. We also suggest that car makers utilize over the air updates to push the updates straight to the cars without relying on the consumers to have to download software updates and put them on a usb or have to continually do recalls to update the software.

Consumers

As in every business, you often have IT training with the end users. When consumers purchase their new car it is important for the consumers to learn about all the systems in their car and what they can do themselves to keep it secure.

Changes to Vehicles

Another area where changes need to be made to improve security is in the actual vehicle itself. When building the car, car makers need to make it so that there is separation between all the different systems. It is especially important to make sure that the infotainment system and the car controls are completely separated. Another suggestion which comes from the director of security from the consulting firm IOActive is to include some sort of intrusion prevention device within the vehicles. This intrusion prevention system would monitor the traffic in the vehicles different systems and when it notices some sort of anomaly it would block that activity.

Visualization Car Security

The need to stay ahead on security. To where, the industry needs to be continuously improving security for their vehicles. For the safety of our customers, especially do to the fact the industries future is leaning more and more digital features. According to an article from Business Insider in the next four years alone, it’s estimated globally there will be an increase of 10 million cars on the road with some sort of self-driving feature (Greenough).

The importance to stay ahead on security is necessary due to the increase of self-driving technology and with the continuing growth of self-driving and the development of the Internet of Things (IoT). Just as of Wednesday the twenty-seventh of April the company Samsung announced the Artik Cloud, which is a cloud system. Which makes it easier for their devices to hook up with other devices. Samsung is preparing their devices so that that they can easily stay connected to smart homes, cars, and cities (Tilley). At the current rate by 2020 we will have one in five vehicles having some sort of wireless network connection according to an article from the Telegraph entitled “How connected cars are driving the Internet of Things”. A recent report from McKinsey highlight from the same article, found that increasing a vehicles connectivity would boost the value of the global market for connectivity five folds. The study also reports that thirteen percent of two-thousand new car buyers surveyed said they would immediately rule out a new car without internet access. Also seventy percent of people are interested in or are already using connected car services. Would consider connected features a key part of their next car purchase (Davidson). With such great interest in these future technologies. It is important that we as an industry stay ahead on the security of vehicles. To help avoid possible breaches or hacks in software, which could lead to major recalls of vehicles, which would possibly put our safety expectation from our customers on the line.

Prospectus: Call to Action

In an effort to make cars safer and more secure not just now, but well into the future, there are several steps that you can take as car manufacturers. It is important to solve these issues now, as the world of technology moves ever closer towards self-driving vehicles, in order to avoid major safety concerns in the future. On top of safety concerns there are also public image concerns that can negatively impact how people view your company, and negatively impact overall sales of your vehicles. Some ways that you can help with this issue include; requiring authentication for updates for code, having longer passwords that are harder to crack and requiring authentication to use a console connection. As of right now updates to code use only requires the host to verify itself, It does not verify a server’s authenticity, opening cars up to downloading code from untrusted sources. Additionally, passwords on the cars were found to only be 8 characters, hashed with MD5 encryption. This password was very easy for attackers to crack, taking only about 10 seconds to break the encryption and log in. Finally, the console connections on these vehicles does not require any kind of authentication. This is a major loophole and allows anyone that can get physical access to your car the ability to attack it.

SOURCES:

Article Title: Car hacking danger grows with move to autonomous vehicles Website Title: The Irish Times

Article Title: Younger U.S. buyers more open to self-driving cars: J.D. Power Website Title: Reuters

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/

https://www.blackhat.com/docs/asia-15/materials/asia-15-Evenchick-Hopping-On-The-Can-Bus-wp.pdf

Kinkle, J. (2014, July 23). Hacking experts build device to protect cars from cyber attacks. Retrieved from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cybersecurity-autos-idUSKBN0FR2FR20140723

Liwer, D. (2015, August 12). Connected Cars Security Hacks: Hype or Real Cause for Alarm? Retrieved from Coronet: http://coro.net/wp/blog/connected-cars-security-hacks-hype-or-real-cause-for-alarm/

Davidson, L. (2015, January 27). How connected cars are driving the Internet of Things. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/engineering/11372205/How-connected-cars-are-driving-the-Internet-of-Things.html

Greenough, J. (2015, July 29). 10 million self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://www.businessinsider.com/report-10-million-self-driving-cars-will-be-on-the-road-by-2020-2015-5-6

Tilley, A. (2016, April 27). Samsung Launches Cloud Service Just For The 'Internet Of Things' Forbes : The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets. Retrieved April 28, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2016/04/27/samsung-artik-cloud/#1a6e39205b49