Low-Level Memory Attacks on Automotive Embedded Systems

Abstract

Most of the modern car's functionality is controlled by software, embedded into electronic control units (ECUs). Modern cars are using more than 70 ECUs. So the embedded system is becoming a vital part of the next generation cars. Automotive Embedded Systems are also being network enabled, allowing for remote updates and data sharing. Due to this exposure software corruption has become a major concern. This paper has reviewed the detailed working of low-level memory in the automotive embedded system, possible threats, potential vulnerabilities which can be exploited. Low-level memory plays an important role in ECUs. It stores all the necessary configuration and the functionality of the individual ECU. There are many ways to read/access the contents of these sectors. Possible attacks on low-level memory segments of an ECU are broadly classified as physical, logical and side-channel attacks. This paper has also reviewed the general attacking strategies on memories available in widely known hardware resources. Based on this study, buffer overflow attack and memory access using debuggers are implemented and discussed here.