Connected cars are vulnerable to cyberattacks, and manufacturers are aware of this. Since 2019, the famous Pwn2Own hacking competition has offered a section dedicated to vehicles. But this year, and for the first time, the competition is 100% dedicated to automobiles. On January 30, 2024, a team managed to hack a Tesla using its infotainment system, while others managed to hack a charging station.
$100,000 reward for hacking Tesla’s infotainment system
On Tuesday, the (French please) Synacktiv team managed to hack Tesla’s infotainment system. This feat earned its members $100,000 and 10 Master of Pwn points. This is not the first time that flaws in this element have been exploited.
Last year, during a more general edition, but including the famous automobile section, this same team had already hacked a car from the American manufacturer; she therefore left with the latter, as provided for by the rules of the competition, as well as with $530,000 in her pocket.
In an interview with the Underscore channel, the two engineers explained that they bought a Tesla on-board computer on eBay, on which they soldered a PCB in order to reverse engineer it. The interview is not lacking in interest since they reveal, in broad terms, on which elements and especially on which orders they acted. Winning the Tesla allowed them to continue working on the entire car.
Note that the American manufacturer is fond of this type of action, which is why it is participating in this competition; this allows it to very quickly highlight the flaws in its systems (and therefore subsequently correct them) by submitting the software to high-level hackers.
Several wallboxes hacked
Other teams exploited the flaws of wallboxes (charging stations), notably from Autel, by playing on the buffer memory.
Against a backdrop of massive deployment of charging solutions, both to the general public and to businesses (models that can deliver very high power), the participation of terminal manufacturers in this type of hacking competition is of particular importance.