Researchers Fool Smart Car Camera with a 2-Inch Piece of Electrical Tape

Researchers Fool Smart Car Camera with a 2-Inch Piece of Electrical Tape
McAfee researchers say they were able to get a Tesla to autonomously accelerate by tricking its camera platform into misreading a speed-limit sign.

Operators of some older Tesla vehicles might be surprised to learn that a single piece of two-inch black electrical tape is all it takes to trick the camera sensor in their cars into misinterpreting a 35-mph speed sign as an 85-mph sign.


Researchers at McAfee who discovered the issue said they were able to get a Tesla, equipped with version EyeQ3 of the Mobileye camera platform, to autonomously accelerate 50 miles above the speed limit.


The hack — which involved extending the middle of the "3" on the traffic sign with black tape — appears to only work on Teslas equipped with Mobileye version EyeQ3 (Tesla hardware Pack 1), according to McAfee. Attempts by the researchers to re-create the attack on Tesla models with the latest version of the Mobileye camera did not work. The newest Teslas no longer implement Mobileye technology, and they don't appear to support traffic sign recognition, McAfee said.


"We are not trying to spread fear here and saying that attackers are likely going to be driving cars off the road," says Steve Povolny, head of McAfee Advanced Threat Research. A Tesla model with the particular Mobileye version will reliably misinterpret the speed limit sign and attempt to accelerate to the misclassified speed limit if the driver has engaged traffic-aware cruise control, Povolny says. But the likelihood of that happening in a real-life situation without the driver becoming aware of the issue and taking control of the vehicle is remote, he says.


The real goal of the research is to raise awareness of some of the ..

Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.