You might need to lift off some plastic cover but it is always accessible without tools. The connector is in arms reach of the driver’s seat. OBD-II is mandatory on all cars and light trucks built in the US after 1996 and Europe after 2004. Some networks can be accessed via the OBD-II port. An ECU could also be connected to multiple networks. The number of networks as well as which ECUs are networked together depends on the car make, model and year.

The critical network uses a fast and reliable protocol whereas the non-critical network uses a slower, less reliable but cheaper protocol. And one for less critical data such as radio and door locks.One for critical data such as engine and powertrain messages.There are multiple networks in a car, generally at least two: These computers are called electronic control units (ECU) and communicate with each other over a network.įor example, when you press the button on your steering wheel to increase the volume of the radio, the steering wheel ECU sends a command to increase volume onto the network, the radio ECU then sees this command and acts accordingly. A car is a networkĪ car consists of multiple computers to control the engine, transmission, windows, locks, lights, etc. If you decide to carry out this tutorial in real life, you’ll need a Linux computer (or a virtual Linux machine), and a CAN-to-USB device (which we’ll look into later). If you want to dig deeper you can checkout the must-reads at the end. It instead aims to provide just enough information to get you up and running. The following is by no means an exhaustive tutorial. In order to do this, we’ll spoof the RPM gauge as an example.

The goal of this article is to get you started hacking cars - fast, cheap, and easy.

By Kenny Kuchera How to hack a car - a quick crash-course Spoofed tachometer, the engine isn’t running.

Car hacking tools