TechCrunch: Researchers find hack to unlock Tesla paid features

Researchers at the Technical University of Berlin say they have found a way to jailbreak the infotainment system of Teslas with an AMD CPU. In this way, features could be unlocked that customers would normally have to pay for.

Source: Tesla

The researchers claim to TechCrunch that a voltage glitch is used, a hacking technique in which the power supply of, in this case, the AMD CPU of a Tesla is affected to gain boot access. In this way, your own code can be taken over by the CPU. The technique in question was discovered several years ago. Because only AMD CPUs are mentioned, in theory this concerns Teslas from 2022 and newer. Until recently, the car manufacturer used Intel CPUs.

The researchers say they can go two ways with jailbreaking the Tesla. On the one hand, unlocking certain paid features is possible. For example, Tesla limits the seat heating and the Autopilot function through software. In theory, hackers can enable the self-driving function in countries where that function is not available and is therefore probably not permitted on public roads. On the other hand, the researchers say they had access to several sensitive data. For example, the vehicle’s authentication key and various personal data, such as agenda items, WiFi passwords and locations visited, would have been visible.

For the attack, hackers need physical access to the vehicle. According to the researchers, preventing this attack on the hardware of a Tesla is only possible if the car company replaces the actual hardware. It is not clear exactly which hardware is involved and which Teslas would be vulnerable. The researchers will present their experiences during the Black Hat security conference. This event will take place in Las Vegas from August 5.