A professor from Hiroshima University was able to hack a custom-made Toyota Corolla WiFi device with a smartphone app, according to the Japan Times.
In his experiment, Hiroyuki Inoue, an associate professor at the University Graduate School of Information Sciences, used a 2013 Toyota Corolla Fielder Hybrid.
Inoue was able to open and close the car doors, change the speedometer readings, and block the car's accelerator.
To accomplish this, the professor created a custom WiFi device, which cost about $82. He installed the device in the car, connecting it to a port under the steering wheel.
This port is present in the car to allow mechanical maintenance of the car and has a direct connection to the internal CAN bus, where all the data from all the electronic devices of the vehicle is located.
Using his smartphone, Inoue managed to connect to this device and gave the command to falsely indicate and perform various other actions.
Furthermore, Inoue was also able to paralyze the car by sending too many requests at once, the equivalent of a DoS (Denial of Service) attack.
The professor's findings raise questions about the security of these types of connections in cars that can connect to the Internet.
Professor Inoue plans to give a lecture on his findings at a three-day cybersecurity meeting, to be held in Okinawa today.
Toyota and the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association were informed of the results of his study.
