Tesla's navigation system has a vulnerability, hackers can easily attack it remotely

Autonomous driving and electric vehicles are both irreversible development trends in the automotive industry, and autonomous driving systems are being developed vigorously by many car manufacturers. Some experts predict that fully autonomous driving vehicles will be available in practical use within five years. But is autonomous driving really safe? Will the "attacks" of hackers controlling vehicles remotely that appear in many science fiction movies really happen in reality? Obviously the answer is yes. After all, all programs have loopholes. As long as loopholes are found, attacks may occur.

Founded in 2016, Regulus, headquartered in Israel, mainly focuses on finding vulnerabilities in global navigation satellite systems and defending against malicious attacks from the outside world. They recently announced that they found a vulnerability in Tesla's navigation system and actually carried out a "remote attack" on Tesla's Model S and Model 3.

Regulus' report shows that Regulus engineers simply bought a transmitter antenna and signal converter (a total of US$650) on the Internet, connected them to their laptops, and used the backdoor vulnerability of Tesla's navigation system to transmit fake satellite positioning signals. From setting up the machine to sending the signal, it took less than a minute to cause the Model 3, which was in automatic driving, to deviate from the road without warning. Because the satellite positioning system on Tesla is linked to the air suspension, the vehicle's body movements were also irregular.

Regulus said that any system has vulnerabilities, especially satellite navigation. As vehicles become more and more dependent on navigation systems in the future, companies and consumers should pay more attention to their safety issues. Regulus also said that they have reported the vulnerability to Tesla, and Tesla responded to the incident: Any instrument or service using GPS signals will be affected by abnormal GPS signals, and malicious deception of GPS signals has been considered a federal crime (in the United States). In fact, after the GPS system was attacked, the impact on Tesla vehicles was very small and there was no safety risk. We will continue to prevent vulnerabilities, but we still need to call again that the premise of using any system is that the driver needs to be responsible for the vehicle and should be prepared to take over the control of the vehicle at any time.

Well... whether you believe it or not, I don’t believe it. The only thing I believe in is to drive with my will.