Fergie's Tech Blog

Researchers Hijack a Car's Brakes and Engines

Erica Naone writes on the MIT Technology Review:

Never mind faulty electronic accelerators--researchers have now shown how to hijack a car's electronic system, overriding the driver's control over both its brakes and engine.

The recent controversy concerning flaws in Toyota's electronic throttle systems shows how serious the results can be when the embedded systems in automobiles go awry. Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California San Diego are now looking at what can happen when those systems are attacked maliciously.

These efforts are described in a report from the Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security, a new research center formed to explore emerging automotive technology. The work will be presented next week at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in Oakland, CA. The researchers say that, assuming an attacker has physical access to the interior of the car they studied, she could take control of many of its computerized systems.

posted by Fergie @ 5/13/2010 06:33:00 PM