According to researchers, they have recently discovered a hardware exploit in the infotainment system that has the potential to unlock premium upgrades for free, including full self-driving (FSD) and heated rear seats. This exploit involves voltage glitching, a technique that manipulates the supply voltage of the infotainment system’s processor.
“By performing this manipulation at the right moment, we can deceive the CPU into executing an alternative instruction,” explained Christian Werling in an interview with . “This results in a hiccup, causing the CPU to skip a specific instruction and accept our modified code. In a nutshell, that’s how it works.”
Werling, together with two other doctoral students from the Technical University of Berlin, discovered this exploit with the assistance of an independent researcher. They will be presenting their findings at the upcoming Black Hat cybersecurity conference.
It is worth noting that this exploit requires physical access to a Tesla vehicle as it is a hardware-based vulnerability. The researchers claim that by utilizing this jailbreak, users could potentially enable features like FSD in regions where Tesla has not yet released them. However, further testing is necessary to verify these possibilities.
Additionally, the researchers have reportedly obtained the encryption key used by Tesla to authenticate its vehicles over the network. This discovery opens the door for potentially unlocking even more features. They have also managed to access personal information from the test car, including GPS locations, contacts, call logs, and calendar appointments.
It is not a new phenomenon for hackers to attempt to bypass Tesla’s paywalls and unlock restricted features. In recent news, one hacker even developed an “Elon Mode” that allows hands-free FSD operations. Tesla has been engaged in a constant cat-and-mouse game with these hackers over the years.
However, the researchers argue that revoking this hardware-based exploit would be considerably more challenging for Tesla. Unlike software-based vulnerabilities, this exploit requires physical access to the vehicle, making it harder for Tesla to address the issue remotely. At the time of writing, Tesla has not responded to requests for comment regarding this matter.
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Deepak Sen is a tech enthusiast who covers the latest technological innovations, from AI to consumer gadgets. His articles provide readers with a glimpse into the ever-evolving world of technology.
