When asked to name some of a vehicles most crucial components, these are some prominent ones that come to mind.

The amount of control that they provide to the vehicles function is indisputable; any technology linked to them must be scrutinized heavily before it is allowed to be deployed.

Such careful evaluation is necessary in producing systems that have minimal vulnerabilities, so it is no surprise that the aforementioned systems are some of the robust.

There is, however, one system that holds just as much importance yet has been compromised airbags.

This protection consists only of a key and seed pair that can be calculated via a weak algorithm that complies with ISO 26021.

Since the algorithm is available to anyone with access to the ISO, the proper key can be easily calculated.

This results in only 65536 different possible keys, a small list for any script to exhaust.

This is further magnified by the fact that, according to the ISO standard, There is no time period which needs to be inserted between access attempts, meaning that a brute force attack on the system will take place in a miniscule amount of time.

With the number of possible keys reduced to a mere 256, the threat this vulnerability poses cannot be underestimated.

This guarantees that even without access to the algorithm provided in ISO 26021, the vulnerability can still be exploited at the expense of the passengers.

The security access originally designed to prevent such premature deployment of a cars airbags has been turned into a weapon against the consumer one that could cause severe injury or death.

As vehicles continue to rely more and more upon computer systems, appropriate levels of security must be developed in tandem.

Trillium SecureGO, SecureFAST, SecureLINK and SecureSKYE are trademarks and servicemarks of Trillium Secure, Inc.

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