The Car Hacker's Handbook
A Guide for the Penetration Tester
Craig Smith's guide to automotive bus systems (CAN, LIN, FlexRay), ECUs, infotainment surfaces, and how to fuzz, trace and exploit modern vehicles.
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- Authors
- Craig Smith
- Published
- 2016
- Publisher
- No Starch Press
- Pages
- 304
- Language
- English
Read this if
Hardware hackers and security researchers approaching automotive targets. Smith covers CAN bus, ECU reverse engineering, infotainment attacks, and the lab tooling that makes vehicle research possible. The canonical entry point.
Skip this if
Pure software-security practitioners with no hardware bench. The book assumes you'll have an OBD-II adapter, an oscilloscope, and a target ECU within reach.
Key takeaways
- Modern vehicles are networks of dozens of ECUs talking over CAN; understanding the bus is the prerequisite for everything else.
- Infotainment systems are now the most accessible attack surface; the book's framing of the dual stack (Linux/Android infotainment + safety-critical ECUs) is the right model.
- Vehicle security research requires a real lab; the chapters on hardware setup and bus interception save weeks of reinvention.
Notes
Pair with Practical IoT Hacking (Chantzis et al) for the broader embedded context and with the OpenGarages.org community materials for current ongoing research. Smith's work on Open Garages gave the field its public-research culture; the book is the structured form. The 2016 publication date pre-dates many newer infotainment platforms; check current Black Hat / DEF CON Car Hacking Village talks alongside.
What to read before
What to read before The Car Hacker's Handbook →Intermediate · 2005
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What to read next
What to read after The Car Hacker's Handbook →Advanced · 2021
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Jasper van Woudenberg and Colin O'Flynn (NewAE / ChipWhisperer) on real hardware attacks: bus sniffing, fault injection, side-channel power analysis, and the lab work that turns a black box into a known target.
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The IDA Pro Book
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