RESOURCES

Thought leaders in information security, we conduct radical, world-changing research and deliver renowned presentations around the world.
Blogs | INSIGHTS | August 20, 2013

FDA Medical Device Guidance

Last week the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally released a couple of important documents. The first being their guidance on using radio frequency wireless technology in medical devices (replacing a draft from January 3,2007), and a second being their new (draft) guidance on premarket submission for management of cybersecurity in medical devices. The wireless technology guidance document seeks to address many of the risks and vulnerabilities that have been disclosed in medical devices (embedded or otherwise) in recent years – in particular those with embedded RF wireless functionality…

Gunter Ollmann
Blogs | INSIGHTS | August 5, 2013

Car Hacking: The Content

Hi Everyone,  As promised, Charlie and I are releasing all of our tools and data, along with our white paper. We hope that these items will help others get involved in automotive security research. The paper is pretty refined but the tools are a snapshot of what we had. There are probably some things that are deprecated or do not work, but things like ECOMCat and ecomcat_api should really be all you need to start with your projects. Thanks again for all the support!    Content: http://illmatics.com/content.zip   Paper:…

Chris Valasek & Charlie Miller
Library | WHITEPAPER | August 5, 2013

Car Hacking Made Affordable

This research focuses on reducing the barrier to entry for automotive security assessments. The goal is to increase the number of security researchers working in this area by providing step-by-step information on how to evaluate, test, and assess Electronic Control Units (ECUs) without requiring a vehicle. To accomplish the work described in this paper, you only need inexpensive electronics and an ECU. Most, if not all, of the equipment and vehicle parts can be acquired from third-party sources, such as eBay or Amazon.

Launch PDF
Charlie Miller & Chris Valasek
Library | WHITEPAPER | July 31, 2013

Adventures in Automotive Networks and Control Units

Previous research has shown that an attacker can execute remote code on the electronic control units (ECU) in automotive vehicles via interfaces such as Bluetooth and the telematics unit:  http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-usenixsec2011.pdf. This paper expands on the topic and describes how an attacker can influence a vehicle’s behavior. It includes examples of mission critical controls, such as steering, braking, and acceleration, being manipulated using Controller Area Network (CAN) messages.

Launch PDF
Charlie Miller & Chris Valasek
Blogs | INSIGHTS | July 25, 2013

Las Vegas 2013

Again, that time of the year is approaching; thousands of people from the security community are preparing to head to Las Vegas for the most important hacking events: Black Hat USA and DefCon. IOActive will (as we do every year) have an important presence at these conferences. We have some great researchers from our team presenting at Black Hat USA and DefCon. At Black Hat USA, Barnaby Jack will be presenting “Implantable medical devices: hacking humans”, and Lucas Apa and Carlos Mario Panagos will be presenting “Compromising industrial…

IOActive
Blogs | INSIGHTS | July 24, 2013

DefCon 21 Preview

Hi Internet! You may have heard that Charlie Miller (@0xcharlie) and I (@nudehaberdasher) will present a car hacking presentation at DefCon 21 on Friday, August 2 at 10:00am. “Adventures in Automotive Networks and Control Units” (Track 3) (https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-21/dc-21-schedule.html) I wanted to put up a blog explaining what exactly we’ll be talking about in a bit more detail than was provided in the abstract. Our abstract was purposefully vague because we weren’t really sure what we were going to release at the time of submission, but obviously have…

Chris Valasek
Blogs | INSIGHTS | July 16, 2013

2013 ISS Conference, Prague

I had the opportunity to attend the 2013 ISS conference in Prague a few weeks ago. The conference is a place where company representatives and law enforcement (and other government agency) officials can meet to share ideas and products information (such as appliances). Even though I had a sore throat, I still found it quite interesting; although not necessarily in terms of the products and presentations – which I felt was overall a bit flat. It was easy to differentiate between company representatives and government officials. Government officials wore yellow…

Lucas Lundgren
Blogs | INSIGHTS | July 11, 2013

Why Vendor Openness Still Matters

When the zombies began rising from their graves in Montana it had already been over 30 days since IOActive had reported issues with Monroe Electronics DASDECS.   And while it turned out in the end that the actual attacks which caused the false EAS messages to be transmitted relied on the default password never having been changed, this would have been the ideal point to publicize that there was a known issue and that there was a firmware update available, or would soon be to address this and other problems……

Mike Davis
Blogs | INSIGHTS | July 4, 2013

Why sanitize excessed equipment

My passion for cybersecurity centers on industrial controllers–PLCs, RTUs, and the other “field devices.” These devices are the interface between the integrator (e.g., HMI systems, historians, and databases) and the process (e.g., sensors and actuators). Researching this equipment can be costly because PLCs and RTUs cost thousands of dollars. Fortunately, I have an ally: surplus resellers that sell used equipment. I have been buying used equipment for a few years now. Equipment often arrives to me literally ripped from a factory floor or even a substation. Each controller…

Reid Wightman
Library | WHITEPAPER | July 1, 2013

Best Practices for using Adobe Reader 9.0

Adobe products have long touted how they enable organizations to collaborate and share information in heterogeneous environments. However, a recent stream of vulnerabilities identified in Adobe products has caused a great deal of concern about the overall security threat associated with using these products. IOActive security experts offer suggestions for how to best protect your computer.

Launch PDF
IOActive

Commonalities in Vehicle Vulnerabilities

2022 Decade Examination Update | With the connected car now commonplace in the market, automotive cybersecurity has become the vanguard of importance as it relates to road user safety. IOActive has amassed over a decade of real-world vulnerability data illustrating the issues and potential solutions to cybersecurity threats today’s vehicles face.

This analysis is a major update and follow-up to the vehicle vulnerabilities report originally published in 2016 and updated in 2018. The goal of this 2022 update is to deliver current data and discuss how the state of automotive cybersecurity has progressed over the course of 10 years, making note of overall trends and their causes.

ACCESS THE REPORT


IOACTIVE CORPORATE OVERVIEW (PDF)IOACTIVE SERVICES OVERVIEW (PDF)


IOACTIVE ARCHIVED WEBINARS