Mitsubishi - BOHICA

Mitsubishi Oversight: Continued Security Flaws

            As time continues to pass, the vehicles continue to become ore connected. This provides an increasing number of vulnerabilities, endpoints and communication channels for attackers to analyze and check.

            As the consumers continue to enjoy the connected vehicles, the functions continue to grow. The automakers have responded to this need by continuing to add functions. The vehicle manufacturers have accommodated this, but a cost. These are added at such a pace that security is quasi-entertained or pushed aside so the project would not be held back. This has become such an issue that federal authorities have notified the automakers to implement security at a greater pace and to a greater extent.

Timing

            Seemingly the increase in the number of years of connected vehicles, the increased pressure from the various federal authorities, and the number of engineer hours, the number of issues would decrease. Unfortunately this has not been the case. The manufacturer Mitsubishi with the model year 2017 Outlander PHEV (plug in electric vehicle) elected to alter the hardware configuration. This was noted by a researcher, who inferred Mitsubishi, was initially not interested in the security oversight which had been installed in their production vehicles. After this was reported to the BBC, Mitsubishi become interested in the topic.

Vehicle

            The only vehicle tested for this was the Mitsubishi 2017 Outlander PHEV (hybrid electric car). This model is being sold in Australia and the UK. Generally the manufacturer uses the accepted methods for the communication to and from the vehicle. This may include the SMS. Mitsubishi however decided it would be a better to implement the vehicle with its own wireless access point (WAP). This was a new communication channel.

Attack

            There were several issues associated with the WAP being placed in the vehicle. The access point itself was rather clearly visible and the preshared key is different per vehicle, but was located in the owner’s manual and was easily crackable. Once the attack is successful, the on-board diagnostic port (OBD-II) would be available for a hack. The OBD-II port is the attack surface that has presented much focus. This attack, at a minimum, allows the car to be unlocked (an subsequently stolen or vandalized), the heating and A/C to be turned on (allows the battery to be drained), the alarm system to be turned off, and the car to be tracked.

            These attacks are the ones which are presently documented. The next step is to explore the vulnerabilities with the OBD-II port itself. There are a number of vulnerabilities that may be found with this.