Researchers were able to fool popular autopilot systems into perceiving projected images as real – causing the cars to brake or veer into oncoming traffic lanes.
Researchers said that autopilot systems used by popular cars – including the Tesla Model X – can be fooled into detecting fake images, projected by drones on the road or on surrounding billboards, as real. Attackers could potentially leverage this design hole to trigger the systems to brake or steer cars into oncoming traffic lanes, they said.
The issue stems from advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS), which are used by semi-autonomous vehicles to help the vehicle driver while driving or parking. By detecting and reacting to obstacles in the road, ADAS systems are designed to increase driver safety. However, researchers said that they were able to create “phantom” images purporting to be an obstacle, lane or road sign; use a projector to transmit the phantom within the autopilots’ range of detection; and trick systems into believing that they are legitimate.
“The absence of deployed vehicular communication systems, which prevents the advanced driving assistance systems (ADASs) and autopilots of semi/fully autonomous cars to validate their virtual perception regarding the physical environment surrounding the car with a third party, has been exploited in various attacks suggested by researchers,” said a team of researchers from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in a post last week (they presented the research at Cybertech Israel conference in Tel Aviv last week).
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