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JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

McAfee warns of hacker threat to autos

Technology Sep. 08, 2011 - 06:00AM JST ( 5 )

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5 Comments

-1

The Munya TimesSep. 08, 2011 - 03:32PM JST

vehicles are enhanced with embedded chips and sensors for a growing array of purposes..........The automobile industry is continually adding features and technologies that deliver new conveniences

Many of these features as well as microchips are useful, while a big percent of them serves solely business purposes and totally unnecessary. There are many better, cheaper, safer solutions.

The more sophisticated the cars or any equipments are becoming the greater the chance of outsider can find a flaw and will crack the security and compromise the system.

Its just a few years and even our home electric blender will run on sophisticated software. Computerized solution for everything even where it constitutes a disadvantage.

Well, when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.
3

Darren BrannanSep. 08, 2011 - 05:07PM JST

McAfee is a virus on itself.. So hard to remove from a PC.. I bet they are the ones making half of the virii anyway.
0

gonemadSep. 08, 2011 - 06:22PM JST

The security problems are known since more than a decade and the industry has steadfastly ignored them because it would make the chips they use a few Yen more expensive. It's going to haunt them...
0

John BeckerSep. 09, 2011 - 01:42AM JST

It wouldn't be a big deal to segregate automotive functions from "frivolous" functions. Separate the nav system from the engine chip. This is not rocket science.
0

gonemadSep. 09, 2011 - 10:05PM JST

John, it's not so simple. Taking your navigation system example, there are plenty of interactions with other electronic systems in the car. They read data from the wheel sensors in order to improve accuracy. They read from the buttons on the steering wheel and display data in your dashboard, a shared screen or head-up display, each of which is again connected to other security-relevant systems. Connections are done through standardized in-car bus systems in order to save cost. Even things like a display, which you would intuitively characterize as data sinks only can transmit data to other systems on the bus, e.g. for diagnostic purposes. The same is true for all other electronic systems in the car. They are all connected by some way or other. The problem is not so much that they are connected, but that the interfaces are not sufficiently secured in terms of access restrictions, secure authentification mechanisms and data plausibility checks.