MadRadar hack can make self-driving cars 'hallucinate' imaginary vehicles and veer dangerously off course

By Keumars Afifi-Sabet published 1 day ago

The MadRadar hack bypasses the anti-spoofing protections in the radars of self-driving cars and can trick targets into imagining vehicles that aren't there — or hiding other ones that are.


A malicious technology can trick self-driving cars into "hallucinating" phantom vehicles and veering dangerously off-course to get out of their way, researchers have discovered.

The new hack, dubbed "MadRadar," can also hide real cars from on-vehicle radar sensors and fool a self-driving car into thinking a real car has jerked off course. The scientists reported their findings in a peer-reviewed paper, which will be presented Feb. 26 at the Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2024 in San Diego.

"Without knowing much about the targeted car's radar system, we can make a fake vehicle appear out of nowhere or make an actual vehicle disappear in real-world experiments," lead author Miroslav Pajic, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University in North Carolina, said in a statement. "We're not building these systems to hurt anyone, we're demonstrating the existing problems with current radar systems to show that we need to fundamentally change how we design them."

Self-driving cars will increasingly take to U.S. roads over the next few years. Mercedes Benz became the first automaker in the U.S. to receive approval for Level 3 self-driving cars in January 2023 — meaning vehicles can perform all the driving under certain conditions. Approval was granted by Nevada state regulators for use on U.S. public freeways. Many electric vehicles, including Tesla's, are fitted with automation or autopilot systems.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/technology/electric-vehicles/madradar-hack-can-make-self-driving-cars-hallucinate-imaginary-vehicles-and-veer-dangerously-off-course