Hackers Hijack a Big Rig Truck’s Accelerator and Brakes
When cybersecurity researchers showed in recent years that they could hack a Chevy Impala or a Jeep Cherokee to disable the vehicles’ brakes or hijack their steering, the results were a disturbing wakeup call to the consumer automotive industry. But industrial automakers are still due for a reminder that they, too, are selling vulnerable computer networks on wheels—ones with direct control of 33,000 pounds of high velocity metal and glass.
At the Usenix Workshop on Offensive Technologies conference next week, a group of University of Michigan researchers plan to present the findings of a disturbing set of tests on those industrial vehicles. By sending digital signals within the internal network of a big rig truck, the researchers were able to do everything from change the readout of the truck’s instrument panel, trigger unintended acceleration, or to even disable one form of semi-trailer’s brakes. And the researchers found that developing those attacks was actually easier than with consumer cars, thanks to a common communication standard in the internal networks of most industrial vehicles, from cement mixers to tractor trailers to school buses.
