Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

www.wired.com

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.

The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle.



Texas Auto Center began fielding complaints from baffled customers the last week in February, many of whom wound up missing work, calling tow trucks or disconnecting their batteries to stop the honking. The troubles stopped five days later, when Texas Auto Center reset the Webtech Plus passwords for all its employee accounts, says Garcia. Then police obtained access logs from Pay Technologies, and traced the saboteur’s IP address to Ramos-Lopez’s AT&T internet service, according to a police affidavit filed in the case.



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I found this article shocking to me. It kind of made me think about how much we've come to rely on technology, and, something like this could happen even now... with all our security and technology.

We aren't really that much safer. There's nothing stopping a disgruntled employee from coming in and wrecking things for everyone else. I've had fears about us going all digital as a society in the past... and things like this kind of confirm my fear. I think it's great to have all of this technology... but there's always still a place for old things, like paper, and stuff like that. You shouldn't run have all your stuff on the web... a system like that just doesn't make sense.

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Have all of the Toyota owners been keeping up with their payments?

I sense another Conspiracy..OH NOES!!


I agree with you somewhat though. Why shut the car down or use the horn when they can track them down with GPS?

This is overdoing it IMO.

This is why some things should be left alone. You can crank up a 1970 Pontiac GTO or a 1957 Chevy and never once have to worry about some idiot or company or computer ruining your day.

That and cars back then were actually cool...

Haha, I applaud this guy.

Really we need hackers to continue to show how some things SHOULDN'T be computer controlled. I love cars and I shudder to think about a future where every car is turned on by pressing a button, you can't get the tires to lose grip because of the computer, you can't go over a certain speed because of the computer, etc. Not to mention some cars can be remotely turned off (like the ones in the story) and tracked.

Can you imagine if this had been onstar hacked?? I had not really given this much thought but millions of cars could have been disabled at once. Do law enforcement have anything like this on their vehicles. Imagineif criminals were able to shut down police cars. I don't think they have it but I am not sure.

Ever since Texas passed a law making it illegal for the insurance company attorneys to access the digital information held in the memory chips of Toyota's or BMW's I've been very wary of technology.

It looks as if we all need to find a few old 1980's vintage vehicles without all the microchips.

'

Hmm reminds me of this site www.tmplab.org...

You can download an MP3 file that, when played, can lock the walmart shopping cart wheels! If you have a very powerful car amp, a very large diameter coil, you can lock all the carts in the store from just outside the front doors. It would be better in the store as you could play a big game of red light....green light!

There is just too many things that can be hacked, it just takes a bit of thought and will.

People could just take the black boxes out.

Technically, it's not hacking if he guy is using his old password to access the system.

As for the debate whether things should be more or less computer controlled - we are far too down the path of computerized automation to turn back.

reply to post by rcwj1975


I have followed a few of your threads and am aware of your profession, I obtained similar training in the military. On that note: How do you think law enforcement agencies would be affected if a similar attack was taken out on the LoJack system? More so, if the system was hacked to trigger all the vehicles within a specified municipality as stolen all at once.

Initially, I would presume slight chaos,
Officer's reaction:
Which would be followed by annoyance from having to answer calls regardless of potentially being false and a product of the hack,
Officer's reaction:

As far as the potential OnStar hack mentioned in one of the previous posts, this scenario is extremely more unnerving by far. If OnStar's database was infiltrated, and the hacker had no regard for human life, then I can see this scenario as being one that could indeed cause quite a bit of carnage on the highway.

Example:

***Disable OnStar CMDMOD***
&Location=Los Angeles*CA*USA>SAT#4r3>>10.2.51.165>>>CONNECTED!
&Type=Auto>>>
&Model=Sedan*Coupe>>>
&Make=Toyota*Honda>>>
&Year='01*-*'11>>>
&Color=Red*Black*Blue*Silver*White>>>
-
-
- Execute >>> Y/N

What happens when the hacker hits Y and then

Originally posted by Skydancer

It looks as if we all need to find a few old 1980's vintage vehicles without all the microchips.

'

Vintage 80's? Vintage? I think they're called "modern classics", at least they are here in the UK. Made me feel really old...! Not a bad choice though, the 80's saw some fantastic motors, the Mk1 MR2 for starters.

Sendran.

what point is there to buy a car you dont technicly drive your self and cant repair and for the same amount you could buy 40+ pre 90´s cars.

This is not a case of too much automation, but rather a case of stupidity and of not realising and thinking through the design (flow) of the program. The program should have self checked for payment details before following the order of an employee, simple problem solved.

reply to post by zerbot565


It brings mind an old finnish saying: "vanhassa vara parempi"¹ - although not explicitly true, in this case I'd say it might be.


¹ Free translation "Old is better".

Here is what I think about this. Lets say the gov gets worried about s revolution in 20 years. They go into the mainframe of all the cars and decide that all cars currently running need to accelerate to about 100 mph. They also disable the brakes. How many people are killed by this? I don't like this story one bit. The minute onstar came out I told everyone I wouldn't get a car with it on it. Now I can show them why.

I guess this is what happens when humans put their faith in technology that can easily be toyed with.

Hackers have the power to do so much these days, mess with your car, hack into privileged information, steal your identity. And they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if it weren’t for our technical advances. I enjoy them, but I accept that they go hand in hand with security and privacy issues.

Some of the higher end buy here pay here use a system called pass-time.
My wife bought a really nice car (was a nice one) from one that had the pass-time system, you get a code to enter in every time you make a payment. No payment no code, the car will not start.
If it has it dont buy its more hassle than its worth.

p. s. but there is a way to circumvent the pass-time system.

There's a commercial I've seen here in Canada for (I believe) OnStar. It shows a high-speed chase that ends in the vehicle slowing to a stop as the company reveals it has the technology to disable your car remotely. It chills me to the bone every time I see it thinking that at any time your control over your car can be overridden by another far away. Yeah the Andymobile doesn't have OnStar or anything fancy like that in it and I don't want there being a remote control to my vehicle. Imagine a hacker or disgruntled employee getting their hands on that.

Originally posted by UberL33t
I have followed a few of your threads and am aware of your profession, I obtained similar training in the military. On that note: How do you think law enforcement agencies would be affected if a similar attack was taken out on the LoJack system? More so, if the system was hacked to trigger all the vehicles within a specified municipality as stolen all at once.

Initially, I would presume slight chaos,
Officer's reaction:

Which would be followed by annoyance from having to answer calls regardless of potentially being false and a product of the hack,
Officer's reaction:

LoJack is an OK system for tracking stolen vehicles. If a hacker were to somehow get into the system and be able to activate the locators on a lot of cars it would cause our traffic unit a lot of grief....lol

The signal/alarm that goes off when you get near a stolen vehicle is annoying, so I can imagine it would suck if this did happen. I agree it would make us a bit mad, considering lojack works like a tracking device. As you get closer it gets louder and tells you were to go. Imagine being told to go 50 different directions....

I personally would call the local lojack rep here in Atlanta and sk him wtf is going on....

Originally posted by Skydancer
Ever since Texas passed a law making it illegal for the insurance company attorneys to access the digital information held in the memory chips of Toyota's or BMW's I've been very wary of technology.

It looks as if we all need to find a few old 1980's vintage vehicles without all the microchips.

'

This is why i only use cell phones pre 1995 models. They are difficult to find but carry a punch that would make any current cell phone as useless as a refrigerator to an eskimo.