14 DAY TRIAL // A professor at Hiroshima City University was able to hack an Internet-connected car with a custom-made WiFi device and an app on his smartphone, Japan Times reports.
In his experiment, Hiroyuki Inoue, an associate professor at Hiroshima City University’s Graduate School of Information Sciences, used a 2013 Toyota Corolla Fielder Hybrid.
Inoue was able to open and close the car's doors, alter speedometer displays, and block the accelerator.
Toyota Corolla hacked via $82 gadget
To achieve this, the professor had to create a custom WiFi device, which cost him around ¥10,000 ($82 / €75) and he later installed on the car by plugging it into a port under the steering wheel.
This port is in there to allow mechanics to perform maintenance on the car and has a direct connection to the car's internal CAN bus, where data from all the electronic devices is centralized.
Using his smartphone, Inoue then connected to this device and instructed it to give false readings or perform various other actions on the car's components.
DoS attack on the car's computer
Additionally, Inoue was also able to paralyze the car by sending it huge amounts of information, the equivalent of a DoS (Denial of Service) attack.
The professor's findings now raise questions about the security of this type of Internet-connected cars. While in previous months security researchers were up in arms about the possibility of getting hacked and losing control of the car while in motion, the same talking heads will now be able to have new fearmongering debates about the prospect of being DDoSed.
Professor Inoue plans to give a longer presentation about his findings at a three-day cyber-security symposium that will be held in Okinawa today.
Toyota and the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association were also informed of his study's results, and will both be taking action.
