Vehicle Security and Car Hacking

Car enthusiast Kenny Kuchera illustrates just enough information to get you up and running. An excellent resource for first timers!

Chris Valasek's and Charlie Miller's pivotal research on hacking into Jeep's presented at DEFCON in 2015.

Troy Hunt goes into controlling Nissan vehicles.

Overview of DEFCON 23 presentation on hacking into Tesla cars.

Overview of the RollJam rolling code exploitation device.

Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller release some of their tools and data for hacking into vehicles in an effort to get more people into vehicle security research.

via the SANS Reading Room, Currie's paper analyses the risks and perils of smart vehicle technology.

A whitepaper from Chris Valasek and IOActive on hacking your car when you don't have a lot of resources at your disposal.

Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek publish all tools, data, research notes, and papers for everyone for free

Craig Smith wrote a brief article on working with Metasploit’s HWBrige using ELM327 Bluetooth dongle

Texas A&M researchers develop intelligence system prototype.

Reverse engineering of CAN diagnostic tools.

Digging into an old ECU through an old protocol and disabling a 1997 Subaru Impreza's speed limiter.

Using VirtualBox and Kali Linux, you can start car hacking using completely free open-source software and tools, including can-utils, ICSim, ScanTool, Wireshark, and tcpdump

A talk from BlackHat Asia 2015 that aims to enable the audience to "gain an understanding of automotive systems, but will also have the tools to attack them".

A talk and slides from Samy Kamkar's DEFCON 23/2015 talk that includes hacking garages, exploiting automotive mobile apps, and breaking rolling codes to unlock any vehicle with low cost tools.

Samy Kamkar, the prolific hacker behind the Samy worm on MySpace, explores hacking into vehicles with OnStar systems.

DEFCON 23 talk Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller give their now famous talk on hacking into a Jeep remotely and stopping it dead in its tracks.

DEFCON 21 talk by Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller on automotive networks.

DEFCON 24 talk by Jianhao Liu, Chen Yan, Wenyuan Xu

talk from BSides Manchester 2016 by Ken and Dave of Pen Test Partners

Zeronights 2016 and later BlackHat talk by Sen Nie, Ling Liu, and Yuefeng Du from Tencent and KEEN Security lab

Bugcrowd LevelUp 2017 by Alan Mond

State of automotive hacking, policy, industry changes, etc. from I Am The Cavalry track at BSides Las Vegas, 2015.

State of automotive hacking, policy, industry changes, etc. from I Am The Cavalry track at BSides Las Vegas, 2016.

DEF CON 23 talk by Marc Rogers and Kevin Mahaffey on hacking a Tesla. Tesla Co-Founder and CTO, JB Straubel, joins them to thank them and present a challenge coin.

A web page with a long list of videos (40+) that are available online related to the topic of car hacking. From a 2007 DEF CON talk on modding engine ECUS and onwards (e.g. the 2017 Keen Security Tesla hack).

Black Hat talk by Jonathan Petit. Automated and connected vehicles are the next evolution in transportation and will improve safety, traffic efficiency and driving experience. This talk will be divided in two parts: 1) security of autonomous automated vehicles and 2) privacy of connected vehicles. 2015

Black Hat talk By Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek. Automotive security concerns have gone from the fringe to the mainstream with security researchers showing the susceptibility of the modern vehicle to local and remote attacks. Discussion of vehicle attack surfaces. 2014.

A presentation that discusses different attack surfaces of a vehicle, then continues to describe an approach to car hacking along with tools needed to analyse and gather useful information.

Introduction to CAN hacking, and using a real car as an Xbox controller.

A guide on how to attack, hunt bugs or hack your IVI by Jay Turla which was presented at the Packet Hacking Village / Wall of Sheep during DEF CON 26.

Overview on how Scapy can be used for automotive penetration testing at Troopers Conference 2019.

Overview of CAN, security, and potential intrusion detection approaches at BSides Knoxville 2020

The Honda Connect app used by Honda City 5th generation used weak security mechanisms in its APIs for access control which would allow a malicious user to perform actions like starting the car, locking/unlocking car etc. remotely by interacting with it's Telematics Control Unit (TCU)

UDS diagnostics protocol fuzzing methodology, presented as a result of numerous penetration testing projects in the automotive industry, with real world exploitation PoCs, presented during Troopers Conference 2022.

Horrifying examples of common vulnerabilities in the automotive industry, result of more than 100 penetration tests targeting Tier 1 suppliers and OEMs, with ultimate goal to raise awareness on the current state of automotive security. Additionally, PoC of automated week seed randomness exploitation in automotive components, by using a battery isolator in heavy-duty vehicles and the UDS protocol, for complete compromise of a target. Presented in Chaos Communication Camp, DeepSec 2023 and Troope…

Car Hacking Village PH presents their first attempt on the main tracks for ROOTCON. This is a rundown of CHVPH's past security research to current research - from hacking infotainment systems to CAN Bus protocols and a summary of cars available in the Philippines which are susceptible to car thefts.

This talk will feature Div0 CSQ’s 3 test benches as they explore more features on Connected vehicles. This was presented in ROOTCON 17 Car Hacking Village.

This talk is for car hackers to learn about modern defense measures being added to ECUs and Vehicle Architectures. This was presented in ROOTCON 17 Car Hacking Village.

Kamel Ghali's talk on ROOTCON 17 about how an attacker's perspective on hacking a car and origins of such attacks, how they've been used in different countries over the years, and explore the technical details of what makes such an attack possible.

This research is dedicated to enhancing the cybersecurity of electric vehicles, with a specific focus on identifying vulnerabilities in the Electric Vehicle Communication Controller (EVCC), and an introduction to the tool V2GEvil. Accessible through the On-Board Charging (OBC) port, makes this attack vector really important for the security of future vehicles.

Shortened and summarized version of the talk V2GEvil: Ghost in the wires, from the DEF CON 32 Car Hacking Village, by Pavel Khunt and Thomas Sermpinis.

Thomas Sermpinis goes through the process of responsibly disclosing findings affecting the Blind Spot Detection Sensor of a current MY vehicle from one of the biggest OEMs in the world, leading to accusations that he was collaborating with hostile nations by the OEM. A story about how automotive manufacturers are treating the security industry, where are we heading, and how to be better, on the stage of DEF CON 32.

Free guide to hacking vehicles from 2014.

Latest version of the Car Hacker's handbook with updated information to hack your own vehicle and learning vehicle security. For a physical copy as well unlimited PDF, MOBI, and EPUB copies of the book, buy it at No Starch Press. Sections are available online here.

An older book from 2005, but still a comprehensive guide on CAN buses and networking in vehicles.

This book first introduced some basic knowledge of security for automotive R&D personnel, such as encryption and decryption, security authentication, digital signatures, common attack types, and methods. Then it introduced the working principles of some smart cars for security researchers, such as the automotive intranet. Protocol, network architecture, principle of X-By-Wire remote control system, common potential attack surface, etc. Finally, a detailed analysis of some actual automotive atta…

This book guides you through prototyping CAN applications on Arduinos, which can help when working with CAN on your own car.

From 2003, this book fills in gaps in CAN literature and will educate you further on CAN networks and working with embedded systems.

This book discusses the security issues in a wide range of wireless devices and systems,Chapter 4 433/315MHz Communication (4.3　4.4 4.5 is about car keys Security)

Self proclaimed "car hacking the definitive source".Adventures in Automotive Networks and Control Units (aka car hacking)Car Hacking for PooriesA Survey of Remote Automotive Attack Surfaces, 2014Remote Compromise of an Unaltered Passenger Vehicle (aka The Jeep Hack), 2015[Advanced CAN Message Injection, …

The content for Udacity's self driving car software engineer course. The actual course on Udacity's website is here.

Blog created by Keen Security Lab of Tencent that posts research on car security.

The Automotive Security Research Group (ASRG) is a non-profit initiative to promote the development of security solutions for automotive products.

Provides public access, documentation and tools necessary to understand today's modern vehicle systems.

Car Hacking exercises from DEFCON 24.

course on Vehicle Hacking methodology.

OWASP's project to secure IoT, from cars to medical devices and beyond.

Global grassroots (eg. volunteer) initiative focused on the intersection of security and human life/public safety issues, such as cars. Participation from security researchers, OEMs, Tier 1s, and many others. Published Automotive 5-Star Cyber Safety Framework.

Community of people interested in car hacking and connecting vehicles to the cloud.

A website for browsing and buying python-integrated cars having certain vehicular security features.

NIST, the organization behind the NVD CVE database and modern cryptographic standards, runs a Community of Interest group for Automotive Cybersecurity that seeks to "provide a way for NIST to facilitate the discussions and receive comments and feedback from the automotive industry, academia, and government.".

European Automotive Cyber Security Summit - Conference series dedicated to automotive cyber security involving many OEMs, Tier 1s, academics, consultants, etc.

Embedded security in cars. European event has run for over 10 years, and they now have US and Asia events.

Conference run by the Association of German Engineers (VDI), with participation from US and European OEMs, Tier 1s, and others.

Conference that focuses on heavy vehicle cybersecurity issues. Includes hands-on assessments of heavy vehicles and subsystems.

Charlie Miller: Hacked the first Apple iPhone, now does car security.Twitter

Samy Kamkar: Created MySpace Worm, RollJam, OwnStar.TwitterWebsite

Justin Seitz: Author of Black Hat Python (No Starch Press).Twitter

Troy Hunt: Pluralsight author. Microsoft Regional Director and MVP for Developer Security. Creator of haveibeenpwned.TwitterWebsite

Ken Munro: British researcher, works at Pen Test Partners; major interest in vehicle securityTwitter

OpenGarages: Initiative to created Vehicle Research Labs around the world.TwitterWebsite

Hackaday: Collaborative project hosting for hackers - there are frequently car projects on here.Twitter

Pen Test Partners: British penetration testing firm; several posts concern their disclosed car security vulnsTwitterWebsite

I Am The Cavalry: Global grassroots (eg. volunteer) initiative focused on the intersection of security and human life/public safety issues, such as cars.TwitterWebsiteDiscussion Group

carfucar: Founder of Car Hacking Village and Speaker or TrainerTwitter

Ian Tabor / mintynet: Car Hacker, Car Hacking Village staffTwitterWebsite

Daniel Öster: Dala's EV Repair, electric vehicle CAN hacking/upgradingYoutubeWebsite

Excellent podcast covering all ranges of security, with some episodes focusing portions on vehicle security from cars to drones.

From the people at TrustedSec, leaders in Social Engineering, their episodes often go into recent vehicle vulnerabilities and exploits.

the ISC run a regular podcast going into the latest vulnerabilities and security news.

A podcast focusing on interviewing security experts about topics related to security.

Software Engineering Daily did an amazing episode with Craig Smith, author of the Car Hacking Handbook (above), on hacking into vehicles.

Jason Haddix explores major vulnerabilities found in cars.

Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller discuss with NPR how they were able to hack into vehicles.

Chris Valasek talks about hacking into connected vehicles.

A community project building a hardware module for your car, a server to talk to it, and a mobile app to talk to the server, in order to allow developers and enthusiasts to add more functionality to their car and control it remotely.

The Open Source Car Control Project is a hardware and software project detailing the conversion of a late model vehicle into an autonomous driving research and development vehicle.

Uptane is an open and secure software update system design protecting software delivered over-the-air to the computerized units of automobiles and is designed to be resilient even to the best efforts of nation state attackers.

Arduino boards have a number of shields you can attach to connect to CAN-enabled devices.CANdiy-ShieldDFRobot CAN-BUS Shield For ArduinoSparkFun CAN-BUS Shieldarduino-canbus-monitor - No matter which shield is selected you will need your own sniffer. This is implementation of stand…

"The Open Source Car Tool" designed to help you hack your car. You can buy one or make your own following the guide here.

Arduino-based OBD-II Bluetooth adapter kit has both an OBD-II device and a data logger, and it comes with GPS, an accelerometer and gyro, and temperature sensors.

The de facto chipset that's very cheap and can be used to connect to CAN devices.

Crafted by a well-known hardware hacker, this board is a general board that can be used for exploration of automotive networks.

Cheap USB to CAN connector that will register a device on linux that you can use to get data from a CAN network.

Expensive, but extremely versatile tools specifically designed for reversing CAN and other vehicle communication protocols.

Replaces expensive measurement tools such as oscilloscopes, signal generators, and spectrum analyzers. Red Pitaya has LabView and Matlab interfaces, and you can write your own tools and applications for it. It even supports extensions for things like Arduino shields.

A system for side-channel attacks, such as power analysis and clock glitching.

A Software Defined Radio peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 1 MHz to 6 GHz. Designed to enable test and development of modern and next generation radio technologies.

Open source development kit that makes it easy to connect your car to the Internet. Lowest cost car hacking tool that is compatible with SocketCAN and can-utils. No OBD-II to serial cable required.

A tool for reverse-engineering and testing automotive systems. The CANBadger consists of both hardware and software. The main interface is a LPC1768/LPC1769 processor mounted on a custom PCB, which offers two CAN interfaces, SD Card, a blinky LED, some GPIO pins, power supply for peripherals and the ethernet port.

A platform giving security auditors to audit CAN devices. It can be used to block, forward or modify CAN frames on the fly autonomously as well as interactively.

General purpose Controller Area Network swiss army knife and development platform.

USBtin is a simple USB to CAN interface. It can monitor CAN busses and transmit CAN messages. USBtin implements the USB CDC class and creates a virtual comport on the host computer.

OpenXC is a combination of open source hardware and software that lets you extend your vehicle with custom applications and pluggable modules. It uses standard, well-known tools to open up a wealth of data from the vehicle to developers. Started by researchers at Ford, it works for all 2002 and newer MY vehicles (standard OBD-II interface). Researchers at Ford Motor Company joined up to create a standard way of creating aftermarket software and hardware for vehicles.

Macchina 2.0 is a complete overhaul of our 1.X generation of Macchina. The goals are still the same: Create an easy-to-use, fully-open, and super-compatible automotive interface.

PandwaRF is a pocket-sized, portable RF analysis tool operating the sub-1 GHz range. It allows the capture, analysis and re-transmission of RF via an Android device or a Linux PC. Capture any data in ASK/OOK/MSK/2-FSK/GFSK modulation from the 300-928 MHz band.

a tool to MITM CAN messages, allowing easy interaction with your car.

WireShark can be used for reversing CAN communications.

Java application for CAN bus diagnosis and monitoring.

GUI tool that can monitor a CAN bus and automatically learn the devices attached to it by watching communications.

An open source tuning suite for the Subaru engine control unit that lets you view and log data and tune the ECU.

Expensive, but extremely versatile tools specifically designed for reversing CAN and other vehicle communication protocols.

Works with the ELM327 to record data to a SQLite database for graphing purposes. It also supports reading GPS data. You can connect this to your car and have it map out using Google Maps KML data where you drive.

CANToolz is a framework for analysing CAN networks and devices. It is based on several modules which can be assembled in a pipeline.

An Open Source tool to simulate, analyze and test data bus systems such as CAN, LIN, FlexRay.

Currently, OpenXC works with Python and Android, with libraries provided to get started.

openpilot is an open source driving agent that performs the functions of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Keeping Assist System (LKAS) for Hondas and Acuras.

An open source Automatic License Plate Recognition library written in C++ with bindings in C#, Java, Node.js, Go, and Python.

The popular metasploit framework now supports Hardware Bridge sessions, that extend the framework's capabilites onto hardware devices such as socketcan and SDR radios.

All-in-one installer/uninstaller for many available Mazda MZD Infotainment System tweaks.

A PoC that the USB port is an attack surface for a Mazda car's infotainment system and how Mazda hacks are made (known bug in the CMU).

CAN related scripts, and scripts to use a car as a gamepad

A security analysis toolkit for proprietary car protocols.

Userspace utilites for SocketCAN on Linux.

a Virtual car userspace that sends CAN messages based on SocketCAN

"dbcc is a program for converting a DBC file primarily into into C code that can serialize and deserialize CAN messages." With existing DBC files from a vehicle, this file allows you to convert them to C code that extracts the CAN messages and properties of the CAN environment.

High level Volkswagen CAN signaling protocol implementation.

A "swiss-army knife" for interacting with live CAN data. Primary API interface in Python, but written in C++.

Development tool for CAN bus simulation. CANdevStudio enables to simulate CAN signals such as ignition status, doors status or reverse gear by every automotive developer.

Free, open-source ECU seed-key unlocking tool.

ETSI ITS G5 GeoNetworking stack, in Java: CAM-DENM / ASN.1 PER / BTP / GeoNetworking

A Python framework for Controller Area Network applications.

Intended to be the nmap of vehicle security.

A fingerprinting tool for CAN communications that can be used to find a specific signal on a CAN network when testing interactions with a vehicle.

Python interface to various CAN implementations, including SocketCAN. Allows you to use Python 2.7.x or 3.3.x+ to communicate over CAN networks.

A Python module for handling realtime sensor data from OBD-II vehicle ports. Works with ELM327 OBD-II adapters, and is fit for the Raspberry Pi.

A "swiss-army knife" for interacting with live CAN data. Primary API interface in Python, but written in C++.

A python library to send, receive, edit raw packets. Supports CAN and automotive protocols: see the automotive doc

A python gui used to visualize and plot message payloads in real time.

A python-based cli framework based on sploitkit and is easy to use because it similar to working with Metasploit. This similar to an exploit framework but focused on known CAN Bus vulnerabilities or fun CAN Bus hacks.

Python interface to SocketCAN

Python module to work with CAN matrix files

Python module to communicate with CANopen devices

Python module to decode and encode CAN messages using a DBC file

Upgraded and optimized version of the original Caring Caribou project.

A Go server that allows a room full of researchers to simultaneously work on the same vehicle, whether for instructional purposes or team reversing sessions.

A Go based CAN simulator for the Raspberry Pi to be used with PiCAN2 or the open source CAN Simulator board

Allows you to communicate over CAN networks with simple JavaScript functions.

Uber Advanced Technologies Center, now Uber AV - info@uberatc.com.

Tesla hires security professionals for a variety of roles, particularly securing their vehicles.

Embedded security company building tools for reversing vehicles.

Rapid7 does work in information, computer, and embedded security.

Security consulting firm that does work on pentesting hardware and embedded systems.

V2X DSRC Radio and Software

A subsidiary of Trend Micro which focuses on automotive security

on HackerOne - Coordinated disclosure submissions accepted

on Bugcrowd - Coordinated disclosure submissions accepted, paid bounties offered

on Bugcrowd - Coordinated disclosure submissions accepted, paid bounties offered

The ASRG Disclosure Process is to support responsible disclosure when direct communication with the responsible company is unavailable or not responsive.

Zeekr and Geely Responsible disclosure program