Skip to main content

Jeep hackers return to remotely hack Cherokee’s digital systems

Just a year after they caused Chrysler to recall 1.4 million Jeep Cherokee vehicles after showing how they could remotely hijack a jeep’s digital systems over the internet, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek are back to show how it could get worse. In the 2015 attack, they first toyed with the vehicle’s air conditioning, entertainment system and windscreen wipers, before cutting the transmission and causing the jeep to slowly come to a halt. At the Black Hat USA 2016 conference this week the two automot
August 4, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
RSSJust a year after they caused 1958 Chrysler to recall 1.4 million Jeep Cherokee vehicles after showing how they could remotely hijack a jeep’s digital systems over the internet, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek are back to show how it could get worse.

In the 2015 attack, they first toyed with the vehicle’s air conditioning, entertainment system and windscreen wipers, before cutting the transmission and causing the jeep to slowly come to a halt.

At the Black Hat USA 2016 conference this week the two automotive cybersecurity researchers will outline new methods of cyber attack against the same Jeep Cherokee they hacked last year.

According to Miller and Valasek, hackers usually inject CAN messages on to the vehicle's network. However, there are often many limitations on what actions the vehicle can be forced to perform when injecting CAN messages. While an attacker may be able to easily change the speedometer while the car is driving, he may not be able to disable the brakes or turn the steering wheel unless the car he is driving meets certain prerequisites, such as travelling below a certain speed.

In their presentation, they plan to discuss how physical, safety critical systems react to injected CAN messages and how these systems are often resilient to this type of manipulation.

They will also outline new methods of CAN message injection which can bypass many of these restrictions and demonstrate the results on the braking, steering, and acceleration systems of an automobile. They end by suggesting ways these systems could be made even more robust in future vehicles.

Related Content

  • March 30, 2016
    Webinar investigates truck telematics global growth opportunities
    The Frost & Sullivan webcast on 5 April at 1500 BST will present the 2016 truck market outlook and will investigate the evolving global connected truck telematics industry discussing top market, technology and regional trends impacting market dynamics in 2016. Besides truck OEMs, after-market telematics providers, tier-1 suppliers, start-ups become considerable stake holders in the connected truck value chain. Start-ups focusing on mobile-based freight brokering, ELD (Electronic Logging Device) hardware and
  • March 22, 2022
    Cities get road priorities right
    Cities including Paris, Milan and London have all announced serious expansions to their bicycling infrastructure over the last few years. The era of active travel is here, finds Alan Dron
  • September 8, 2015
    Over-the-air software updates to benefit for automotive market, IHS says
    While quite common in smartphones and personal computers, remote over-the-air (OTA) software updates are still only in their infancy in the automotive space, according to a new report from IHS Automotive. The report finds that OTA software updates will eventually be a big benefit for the automotive industry due to their capacity to reduce warranty costs, potentially increase overall completion rates for software-related recalls, improve customer satisfaction by eliminating trips to the dealership for so
  • February 1, 2012
    Legalities of in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures
    Paul Laurenza of Dykema Gossett PLLC discusses the paths which lawmakers may go down on the route to making in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures a reality. The question of whether or not to mandate in-vehicle systems for safety and other applications is a vexed one. There is a presumption on some parts that going down the road of forcing systems' fitment is somehow too domineering or restricting. Others would argue that it is the only realistic way of ensuring that systems achieve widespread d