Cyber Attack Causing Physical Damage

[xoxoxoBruce]

You hear occasional village idiots claiming people are getting sick from catching a virus off the internet. We also snickered over tales of a cyber attack destroying hardware... until Stuxnet. But even after that the probably of hardware damage was low enough the story teller would usually be greeted with rolled eyes and hurried goodbyes.

Now a second confirmed case of a cyber attack resulting in physical damage in a German steel mill. The (pdf in German) report says that hackers had struck an unnamed steel mill in Germany. By manipulating and disrupting control systems a blast furnace could not be properly shut down, resulting in “massive” unspecified damage.

This is nothing compared to the disruption experts are predicting could be coming to power grids, water systems, transportation systems, etc. Maybe a bunker in Idaho isn't so crazy.

Link

[sexobon]

Meh, we'll just go to manual override. If that doesn't work, we'll initiate the self destruct sequence. If all else fails, we'll have the janitor pull the plug.

[Lamplighter]

Is there a trend here ?

NY Times By AARON M. KESSLERFEB. 8, 2015
Report Sees Weak Security in Cars’ Wireless Systems

WASHINGTON — Serious gaps in security and customer privacy affect nearly every vehicle
that uses wireless technology, according to a report set to be released on Monday by a senator’s office.
<snip>
In addition to finding “a clear lack of appropriate security measures to protect drivers against hackers
who may be able to take control of a vehicle” or hackers who wish to “collect and use personal driver information,”
the report expressed concerns over how automakers track drivers’ behavior and collect, transmit and store that information…

The information collected includes where drivers have been, like physical location recorded at regular intervals,
the last location they were parked, distances and times traveled, and previous destinations entered into navigation systems.…

TechCrunch 2/8/15
Today In Creepy Privacy Policies, Samsung’s Eavesdropping TV

As the number of connected devices
— aka the Internet of Things, aka the sensornet —
proliferates so too does the number of devices leaning on
voice recognition technology as an interface to allow for hands free control.
<snip>
The clear consumer electronics trajectory is for more devices with
embedded ears that can hear what their owners are saying.
And, behind those ears, the server-side brains to data-mine our
conversations for advertising intelligence.

Just imagine the future.... You're driving past a bill board advertising frozen pizza.

Your kid in back says: "I want pizza"
You say "No, Mom is at home fixing dinner"

Suddenly, your car takes command, turns onto the freeway, and
10 minutes later pulls into a space in the Pizza Hut parking lot.
You are surprised to see your wife crying in her car parked next to you.

She sobbed: "I was putting a roast in the oven when suddenly, the
stove turned off. the tv turned off, and all the lights went out,
The garage door went up and my car horn started blasting away.
I went out and got in the car to turn stop the horn, when the car doors locked.
The seat belt wrapped itself around me, the motor started, and the car brought me here."

[glatt]

Terrorists would love to hack into the driving system and cause every self driving car in the US to suddenly accelerate at high speed off the road.

[/] scared of the future guy

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Just imagine the future.... You're driving past a bill board advertising frozen pizza.

Your kid in back says: "I want pizza"
You say "No, Mom is at home fixing dinner"

Suddenly, your car takes command, turns onto the freeway, and
10 minutes later pulls into a space in the Pizza Hut parking lot.
You are surprised to see your wife crying in her car parked next to you.

She sobbed: "I was putting a roast in the oven when suddenly, the
stove turned off. the tv turned off, and all the lights went out,
The garage door went up and my car horn started blasting away.
I went out and got in the car to turn stop the horn, when the car doors locked.
The seat belt wrapped itself around me, the motor started, and the car brought me here."

I think I saw that on The Twilight Zone once...

[BigV]

Originally Posted by glatt

Terrorists would love to hack into the driving system and cause every self driving car in the US to suddenly accelerate at high speed off the road.

[/] scared of the future guy

heh.

the cars I'm least worried about are the autonomously driving cars. the cars I'm most worried about are the luxe/semi-luxe models that tout all the modern WIRELESS conveniences of our internet life, built right into the car for your "pleasure" / "safety" / "convenience". The wirelessness is the part that frightens me, because these cars ALREADY do a fair amount of deciding about the control of the car, including speed control, braking control. The more dramatic decisions are ones where the car overrides the driver's choices.

Hacking a car's wireless systems

The wireless hacking was done by taking advantage of the sensors inside each tire that broadcast a brief radio signal every 60 to 90 seconds. The signal tells one of the car's computer systems the pressure of each. But researchers found that even those weak signals could be intercepted up to 120 feet away and hacked from a roadside location – or by a car in traffic.

Traveling in tandem with the target car, the researchers sent false low-air-pressure warnings to the car's dashboard display and eventually wrecked the internal computer.

If sending a spurious "low pressure" messages doesn't sound exactly like Mission Impossible, the work of other researchers yielded potentially more-serious vulnerabilities. In May, a team of researchers reported that they succeeded in hacking into the onboard computer networks that controlled the engine, brakes, and door locks, among other systems. This latter study was done physically – not wirelessly – by connecting into a vehicle's computers.

...

CarShark

Using homemade hacking software they dubbed "CarShark," the Washington-San Diego researchers in lab and road tests "demonstrate the ability to adversarially control a wide range of automotive functions and completely ignore driver input – including disabling the brakes, selectively braking individual wheels on demand, stopping the engine, and so on," the researchers wrote.

Originally Posted by Stuntman Mike

I'm afraid you're gonna have to start getting scared... immediately!

[fargon]

I was not aware that you could brake an individual wheel.

[glatt]

I bet you can with electric cars that brake with generators.

[glatt]

Oh, and ABS modulators have 4 lines going in to them. Maybe the ABS modulator on a regular car can brake individually.

[tw]

Originally Posted by fargon

I was not aware that you could brake an individual wheel.

It is called stability control. Created because SUVs so routinely overturned. Individual wheels are braked so that power is redirected to another wheel - overwhelming the all wheel drive function that tries to lock all wheels to a same speed.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by fargon

I was not aware that you could brake an individual wheel.

YOU can't, because you are just using the brake pedal. Silly hu-man.

The car can, or more precisely, the car's computers with input from the sensors alllll over the car *can* brake an individual wheel. And it's the exposure of this electronic control module (ECM) to interference from outside that permits this unintended consequence.

[fargon]

I quit working on cars in 1984, when the Snap-On man told me that I was going to have to spend $200.00 to get the tools to get the back plugs out of a Celebrity V6. I tried working on my Buick La Saber I changed the plugs, wires, and coil packs. And it still had a dead miss, no check engine light so no codes on the code reader at O' Reilly auto parts. I gave up and took it to the dealer, $650.00 later I had a new crank sensor, and ignition module. I hate cars. John Deere Rules!

[Undertoad]

I was going to have to spend $200.00 to get the tools to get the back plugs out of a Celebrity V6

"It's ironic... in all of history there has never been one actual celebrity who has driven a Chevy Celebrity." -- Carolla

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

"It's ironic... in all of history there has never been one actual celebrity who has driven a Chevy Celebrity."

How many celebrities live in Malibu?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by fargon

I hate cars. John Deere Rules!

When was the last time you worked on a Deere? Even a little oops can be very expensive.