German students break into Tesla operating system with basic equipment

A team of German computer ­science students has broken into Tesla’s in-car operating system and autopilot with basic equipment that cost $970.

A team of German computer ­science students has broken into Tesla’s in-car operating system and autopilot with basic equipment that cost $970.

A team of German computer ­science students has broken into Tesla’s in-car operating system and autopilot with basic equipment that cost €600 ($970).

For some years hackers have been testing the electric car maker’s defences, usually without much success.

In March, one group of cybersecurity experts based in France took less than two minutes to gain access to some of a Tesla vehicle’s onboard computers from a distance, allowing them to turn the lights on and off, honk the horn and activate the windscreen wipers.

Five months later security researchers in Germany cracked the processor in another Tesla system, highlighting a vulnerability that could allow drivers to trick the system into unlocking features they had not paid for.

Using a very similar method, a team from the same Berlin university have staged a raid deep into the electronic bowels of the autopilot.

Among other things, they found hints of a secret setting nicknamed “Elon mode” – named after Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk – that appears to enable fully automated driving without the usual need for the driver to tap the steering wheel every once in a while to prove they are paying attention.

Fortunately for Tesla owners, the attack requires physical contact with the circuitry and cannot be carried out from a distance. However, it could be used by rivals to steal the technology.

Known as “voltage glitching”, it involves briefly varying the power supply, forcing the system to drop its defences for a fraction of a second. While this time window was too short to carry off all of the data on the computer, it allowed the researchers to take “snapshots”. These included video from the vehicle’s cameras and some of the routes it had previously taken. More tantalisingly, the researchers also found code that seemed to confirm the existence of the Elon-mode setting.

The results were presented at the Chaos Computer Club hacking congress in Hamburg on Wednesday.

THE TIMES