Unlocking any car from X brand in most of the world(shubs.io)
624 points by infosecau 2 days ago | 344 comments
tl;dr: Security researchers chained several vulnerabilities in a major automaker's connected car platform to remotely unlock any of their vehicles in Australia (and later the US and Canada) using just a license plate number. The attack chain combined plate-to-VIN lookups, hardcoded OpenIDM admin credentials found in a JavaScript bundle, a GPT-assisted WAF path traversal bypass, and an MFA bypass via OAuth's Resource Owner Password Credentials flow. This allowed them to mint auth tokens for any user and issue commands like door-unlock and engine-start via the telematics API.
HN Discussion:
  • •Identifying the automaker as Toyota/Lexus based on visual and technical clues
  • ↑Connected cars are a fundamentally bad idea that create unnecessary vulnerabilities
  • ↑Connected cars erode ownership, privacy, and repairability like smartphones have
  • ↑The security architecture is incompetent; simple cryptographic designs would prevent this
  • ↓The 'any car' claim is overstated since older models aren't affected