threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for commaai/openpilot

Threat: Data Exfiltration via Telemetry

• Description: An attacker exploits vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in the telemetry system to gain unauthorized access and extract sensitive driving data, logs, or camera snippets transmitted by openpilot. This could be achieved by intercepting network traffic, compromising telemetry servers, or exploiting weaknesses in data transmission protocols.
• Impact: Privacy violation, exposure of sensitive driving patterns, location data, and potentially personal information. Reputational damage and legal repercussions for the application provider.
• Affected openpilot component: uploader.py module, telemetry infrastructure, network communication channels.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement robust encryption for telemetry data in transit and at rest.
  • Strictly control access to telemetry data and servers using strong authentication and authorization mechanisms.
  • Regularly audit telemetry data collection and transmission processes for security vulnerabilities.
  • Minimize the amount of sensitive data collected and transmitted.
  • Implement data anonymization and pseudonymization techniques.
  • Use secure communication protocols (HTTPS, TLS) for telemetry transmission.

Threat: Malicious Code Injection into openpilot Components

• Description: An attacker exploits vulnerabilities in openpilot software or its dependencies to inject malicious code. This could be achieved through buffer overflows, injection flaws, or exploiting insecure deserialization. The injected code could grant unauthorized control over vehicle functions, cause system instability, or manipulate data.
• Impact: Vehicle malfunction, safety risks, system instability, denial of service, potential for physical harm, complete system compromise.
• Affected openpilot component: All openpilot modules and libraries, especially those written in C/C++ and interacting with external systems or data.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement secure coding practices throughout openpilot development.
  • Regularly perform static and dynamic code analysis to identify vulnerabilities.
  • Conduct thorough penetration testing and security audits.
  • Keep openpilot and its dependencies up-to-date with security patches.
  • Implement input validation and sanitization to prevent injection attacks.
  • Use memory-safe programming languages or techniques where possible.
  • Employ sandboxing or containerization to isolate critical components.

Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks against openpilot Processes

• Description: An attacker overloads or disrupts openpilot processes, either locally or remotely, leading to system failure or degradation of driving assistance features. This could be achieved by flooding network interfaces, exploiting resource exhaustion vulnerabilities, or crashing critical processes.
• Impact: Loss of driving assistance functionality, system instability, potential safety risks if DoS occurs during critical driving situations, system unavailability.
• Affected openpilot component: All openpilot processes, especially critical modules like plannerd, controlsd, thermald, network communication modules.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement rate limiting and traffic shaping to prevent network-based DoS attacks.
  • Harden system configurations to prevent resource exhaustion.
  • Implement process monitoring and restart mechanisms to recover from crashes.
  • Use robust error handling and fault tolerance in openpilot code.
  • Regularly monitor system resources and performance for anomalies.

Threat: Sensor Spoofing and Data Injection

• Description: An attacker manipulates sensor data (camera, radar, GPS, IMU) fed to openpilot, either through physical manipulation (e.g., jamming sensors) or software-based attacks (e.g., injecting false data into sensor communication channels). This could mislead openpilot and cause it to make incorrect driving decisions.
• Impact: Erratic vehicle behavior, safety risks, potential accidents due to misinterpretation of the environment by openpilot, system malfunction.
• Affected openpilot component: Sensor interfaces, sensor data processing modules (camerad, sensord), perception modules (modeld, plannerd).
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement sensor data validation and integrity checks.
  • Use redundant sensors and sensor fusion techniques to detect anomalies and inconsistencies.
  • Secure sensor communication channels with encryption and authentication.
  • Physically secure sensors to prevent tampering.
  • Implement anomaly detection algorithms to identify unusual sensor readings.
  • Develop fallback mechanisms for sensor failures or data corruption.

Threat: CAN Bus Injection and Control Manipulation

• Description: An attacker exploits vulnerabilities in the communication between openpilot and the vehicle's CAN bus to inject malicious messages. This could allow attackers to directly control vehicle functions (steering, acceleration, braking), bypassing safety mechanisms and potentially causing dangerous situations.
• Impact: Complete loss of vehicle control, severe safety risks, potential for accidents and physical harm, vehicle hijacking.
• Affected openpilot component: CAN interface modules (car, boardd), control modules (controlsd), vehicle interface libraries.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement CAN bus message filtering and validation to reject unauthorized messages.
  • Use CAN bus intrusion detection systems (IDS) to monitor for malicious activity.
  • Isolate the CAN bus interface from external networks where possible.
  • Implement secure boot and firmware integrity checks to prevent tampering with CAN interface software.
  • Employ hardware security modules (HSMs) to protect critical CAN communication keys and cryptographic operations.
  • Minimize the attack surface of the CAN bus interface.

Threat: Software Supply Chain Compromise

• Description: openpilot relies on numerous open-source libraries and dependencies. An attacker compromises these dependencies (e.g., through malicious updates or backdoors in libraries like numpy, protobuf, opencv) and introduces vulnerabilities into the openpilot system without directly modifying openpilot's core code.
• Impact: Introduction of vulnerabilities, backdoors, or malicious functionality into openpilot, leading to various security and safety risks, widespread compromise affecting many users.
• Affected openpilot component: All openpilot components relying on external libraries and dependencies, build system, dependency management tools.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement dependency scanning and vulnerability management processes.
  • Use software bill of materials (SBOM) to track dependencies.
  • Regularly update dependencies with security patches from trusted sources.
  • Verify the integrity and authenticity of downloaded dependencies using checksums and digital signatures.
  • Consider using dependency pinning or vendoring to control dependency versions.
  • Monitor security advisories and vulnerability databases for known issues in dependencies.

Threat: Firmware and Bootloader Tampering

• Description: An attacker modifies the firmware or bootloader of the device running openpilot (e.g., comma device). This could be achieved by exploiting vulnerabilities in the firmware update process or gaining physical access to the device. Tampering allows for persistent malware installation, bypassing security measures, and gaining low-level control over the system.
• Impact: Persistent compromise of the system, ability to bypass security controls, potential for long-term malicious activity, rootkit installation, device bricking.
• Affected openpilot component: Bootloader, firmware update mechanism, operating system, low-level system software.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement secure boot to verify the integrity of the bootloader and firmware.
  • Use cryptographic signatures to ensure firmware authenticity and prevent tampering.
  • Secure the firmware update process and restrict access to firmware update mechanisms.
  • Implement rollback protection to prevent downgrading to vulnerable firmware versions.
  • Physically secure the device to prevent unauthorized access and tampering.

Threat: Lack of Security Updates and Patch Management

• Description: Failure to regularly update openpilot software and its dependencies with security patches. This leaves the system vulnerable to known exploits and attacks that have been publicly disclosed and for which patches are available. Attackers can exploit these known vulnerabilities to compromise the system.
• Impact: Increased vulnerability to known attacks, potential system compromise, data breaches, and safety risks, exploitation of publicly known vulnerabilities.
• Affected openpilot component: Software update mechanism, dependency management, version control, vulnerability tracking system.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Establish a robust security update and patch management process.
  • Regularly monitor security advisories and vulnerability databases for openpilot and its dependencies.
  • Automate the process of applying security updates where possible.
  • Provide clear instructions and tools for users to update their openpilot installations.
  • Test security updates thoroughly before deployment.
  • Implement a mechanism to notify users about available security updates.