With a hack, doctoral students from the TU Berlin and a security researcher were able to use all the premium functions of a Tesla that buyers normally have to unlock first: full entertainment, heated rear seats and more. The weak point is probably the new AMD-based infotainment system.
The pre-announcement for BlackHat USA 2023 has it all: In a 40-minute contribution, three doctoral students from the TU Berlin and the security researcher Oleg Drokin want to show. How to hack into a Tesla's infotainment system (MCU-Z) and then unlock the premium features. Because buyers usually have to pay for heated rear seats or faster acceleration via subscription for use. After the hack, the on-board computer is sure that the subscription is valid and that all functions have been paid for.
Tesla hack unlocks subscription services
Tesla is known for its advanced and well-integrated car computers, ranging from everyday entertainment purposes to fully autonomous driving functions. More recently, Tesla has started using this established platform to enable in-car purchases, not just for additional connectivity features, but even analog features like faster acceleration or heated rear seats. Therefore, by hacking the onboard car computer, users could unlock these features without paying for it.
In this talk, the researchers present an attack on newer AMD-based infotainment systems (MCU-Z), which are used in all newer models. It offers two distinct features: First, it enables the first non-patchable AMD-based "Tesla Jailbreak" that allows arbitrary software to run on the infotainment. Second, it makes it possible to extract an otherwise vehicle-specific, hardware-bound RSA key used to authenticate and authorize a car on Tesla's internal service network.
Advertising
Subscribe to our newsletter now
Read the best news from B2B CYBER SECURITY once a month
Expand for details on your consent
It goes without saying that we handle your personal data responsibly. If we collect personal data from you, we process it in compliance with the applicable data protection regulations. Detailed information can be found in our
Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. You will find a corresponding link in the newsletter. After you have unsubscribed, your data will be deleted as soon as possible. Recovery is not possible. If you would like to receive the newsletter again, simply order it again. Do the same if you want to use a different email address for your newsletter. If you would like to receive the newsletter offered on the website, we need an e-mail address from you as well as information that allows us to verify that you are the owner of the e-mail address provided and that you agree to receive the newsletter. Further data is not collected or only collected on a voluntary basis. We use newsletter service providers, which are described below, to process the newsletter.
CleverReach
This website uses CleverReach to send newsletters. The provider is CleverReach GmbH & Co. KG, Schafjückenweg 2, 26180 Rastede, Germany (hereinafter “CleverReach”). CleverReach is a service that can be used to organize and analyze the sending of newsletters. The data you enter for the purpose of subscribing to the newsletter (e.g. email address) will be stored on the CleverReach servers in Germany or Ireland. Our newsletters sent with CleverReach enable us to analyze the behavior of the newsletter recipients. This can include It is analyzed how many recipients have opened the newsletter message and how often which link in the newsletter was clicked. With the help of so-called conversion tracking, it can also be analyzed whether a previously defined action (e.g. purchase of a product on this website) took place after clicking on the link in the newsletter. Further information on data analysis by CleverReach newsletter is available at:
https://www.cleverreach.com/de/funktionen/reporting-und-tracking/. The data processing takes place on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). You can revoke this consent at any time by unsubscribing from the newsletter. The legality of the data processing operations that have already taken place remains unaffected by the revocation. If you do not want an analysis by CleverReach, you must unsubscribe from the newsletter. For this purpose, we provide a corresponding link in every newsletter message. The data you have stored with us for the purpose of subscribing to the newsletter will be stored by us or the newsletter service provider until you unsubscribe from the newsletter and deleted from the newsletter distribution list after you have canceled the newsletter. Data stored by us for other purposes remain unaffected. After you have been removed from the newsletter distribution list, your e-mail address may be stored by us or the newsletter service provider in a blacklist if this is necessary to prevent future mailings. The data from the blacklist is only used for this purpose and is not merged with other data. This serves both your interest and our interest in complying with the legal requirements when sending newsletters (legitimate interest within the meaning of Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR). Storage in the blacklist is not limited in time.
You may object to the storage if your interests outweigh our legitimate interest.
For more information, see the privacy policy of CleverReach at:
https://www.cleverreach.com/de/datenschutz/.
Data processing
We have concluded a data processing agreement (DPA) for the use of the above-mentioned service. This is a contract mandated by data privacy laws that guarantees that they process personal data of our website visitors only based on our instructions and in compliance with the GDPR.
RSA key can be extracted
To do this, the researchers used a known voltage error injection attack against the AMD Secure Processor (ASP), which serves as the root of trust for the system. At the congress and briefing, the researchers show how they used inexpensive, homegrown hardware to launch the glitching attack and subvert the ASP's early boot code. They then show how they redesigned the boot flow to have a root shell for their recovery and production Linux distributions.
The root rights obtained in this way allow any changes to Linux, which also survive restarts and updates. They allow an attacker to decrypt the encrypted NVMe storage and access private user data such as the phone book, calendar entries, etc. On the other hand, it can also benefit vehicle use in unsupported regions. In addition, the ASP attack opens up the possibility of extracting a TPM-protected attestation key that Tesla uses to authenticate the car. This allows a car's identity to be migrated to another car computer without any help from Tesla, making certain repair jobs easier.
More at BlackHat.com
Matching articles on the topic
