Tire pressure monitors, built into modern cars, have been shown to be insecure by researchers from Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina, reports Business Week.
The tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) consist of battery-powered RFID tags on each tire, which can respond with the air pressure readings of the tire when wirelessly queried by an electronic control unit (ECU). The devices are compulsory in new automobiles.
While tire pressure monitor hacks aren’t particularly threatening to occupants, researchers say hackers could use the weakness to track a vehicle or possibly cause its electronic control unit, which controls the cars electronic stability control feature and tire pressure monitoring system, to malfunction or fail.
Some modern motor vehicles have up to 80 ECUs, says Wikipedia.
Earlier in the year, researchers from the University of Washington and University of California San Diego showed that the ECUs could be hacked, giving attackers the ability to be both annoying, by enabling wipers or honking the horn, and dangerous, by disabling the brakes or jamming the accelerator.
The new research shows that other systems in the vehicle are similarly insecure. The tire pressure monitors are notable because they’re wireless, allowing attacks to be made from adjacent vehicles. The researchers used equipment costing $1,500, including radio sensors and special software, to eavesdrop on, and interfere with, two different tire pressure monitoring systems, says ArsTechnica.
