Hacker Hacks His Own Car Just to Change the Clock

Modern vehicle owners frequently encounter technical hurdles, but the case of Rasmus Moorats is truly unprecedented. The security researcher decided to "hack" the infotainment system of his 2014 Renault Latitude simply to adjust the clock for daylight saving time. This complex process became necessary after the car's system refused to update the time due to a missing navigation SD card.

The SD Card Problem

When Moorats purchased the second-hand vehicle, the previous owner warned him that the original navigation card was required to adjust the clock. The researcher initially doubted this and chose not to use the card containing outdated maps. However, when it came time to adjust the clock by an hour, he discovered that the corresponding menu would not open, displaying a "No maps detected!" error message instead.

Hacking the Infotainment System

Moorats, who has a background in security, decided to perform reverse engineering on the system. He determined that the dashboard operated on a modified Linux-based TomTom operating system, built on a Samsung chipset (SoC). The researcher disassembled the firmware and discovered several vulnerabilities.

The major breakthrough occurred when he gained access to the system kernel. He discovered that the vehicle's time settings were stored in a specific binary file: /mnt/flash/settings.dat. As it turned out, the system has no concept of time zones; it retrieves time via GPS and stores the local offset in minutes. Moorats simply changed this number from 180 to 120, and the clock was corrected.

Why This Matters

This case clearly illustrates the absurd limitations present in modern vehicles. When manufacturers link critical functions, such as setting the clock, to specific hardware components like an SD card, owners are left with difficult choices. Although these specific Renault models are quite common in Georgia, such problems often remain unresolved because not every owner possesses the programming skills required to perform a thorough system hack. This story serves as another reminder that the integration of digital technologies in automobiles should be more flexible and user-oriented.