Executive Summary

The Pwn2Own Automotive 2026 competition has concluded, with security researchers earning a total of $1,047,000 for successfully exploiting 76 zero-day vulnerabilities in modern connected vehicle systems. The event underscored the significant and growing security risks within the automotive sector. A team of researchers managed to achieve a full root compromise of a Tesla infotainment system by chaining multiple flaws, a feat that earned them a substantial portion of the prize pool. Other targets, including various Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers and In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems, were also successfully hacked. The findings serve as a critical warning to the automotive industry about the need for robust, continuous security testing and hardening of the complex software supply chain that underpins modern vehicles.

Threat Overview

The Pwn2Own competition provides a controlled environment for white-hat hackers to demonstrate vulnerabilities in real-world products. The 2026 automotive event focused on two main categories: In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems and Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), commonly known as EV chargers. Researchers successfully demonstrated exploits against products from multiple vendors, proving that the digital attack surface of cars is both broad and vulnerable.

The most notable achievement was the complete compromise of a Tesla infotainment system. This was not a single-flaw exploit but a complex chain involving an information leak and an out-of-bounds write vulnerability. By combining these flaws, the researchers were able to escalate privileges and gain root access, giving them complete control over the IVI unit. In total, 37 unique zero-days were demonstrated against Tesla systems alone.

Technical Analysis

While the specific technical details of the 76 zero-day vulnerabilities will remain private for a 90-day period to allow vendors to develop patches, the high-level descriptions provide insight into the attack vectors.

Tesla Infotainment Hack:

• Attack Chain: The successful exploit was a multi-stage attack, a common technique for compromising hardened targets.
  1. Information Leak: The initial vulnerability likely allowed the researchers to bypass Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) by leaking memory addresses.
  2. Out-of-Bounds Write: This memory corruption flaw was then used to write data outside of its intended buffer, allowing the researchers to hijack the program's control flow.
  3. Privilege Escalation: The control flow hijack was leveraged to execute arbitrary code, ultimately leading to root permissions on the device.

MITRE ATT&CK TTPs (Inferred)

• T1068 - Exploitation for Privilege Escalation: The ultimate goal of the Tesla hack was to escalate from a low-privilege context to root.
• T1210 - Exploitation of Remote Services: IVI systems and EV chargers expose network services that can be targeted remotely.
• T1059 - Command and Scripting Interpreter: Gaining root access implies the ability to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system (often a Linux variant).
• T1548 - Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Attackers likely bypassed built-in security controls to gain higher-level permissions.

Impact Assessment

A compromised IVI system can pose significant risks. While typically isolated from critical drive systems, a rooted infotainment unit could potentially be used to:

• Access Sensitive Data: Steal personal information stored on the system, such as contacts, location history, and connected accounts.
• Eavesdrop: Activate the in-car microphone to listen to conversations.
• Pivot to Other Systems: In a worst-case scenario, an attacker could attempt to pivot from the IVI system to more critical Electronic Control Units (ECUs) that manage vehicle functions, although this is usually prevented by network segmentation.

Vulnerabilities in EV chargers could allow attackers to disrupt charging sessions, steal electricity, or potentially compromise the payment information of users. The successful exploits at Pwn2Own demonstrate that these are not theoretical risks but practical threats that require immediate attention from manufacturers.

Cyber Observables for Detection

Since specific IOCs are not public, detection must focus on behavioral anomalies in automotive systems.

Detection & Response

For automotive manufacturers and fleet operators:

• Firmware Integrity: Implement secure boot and runtime integrity checks to detect any unauthorized modifications to the IVI firmware. Use D3FEND Bootloader Authentication.
• Network Monitoring: Vehicle Security Operations Centers (VSOCs) should monitor telematics data for anomalous network connections originating from IVI systems. Any communication with non-whitelisted domains should trigger an alert.
• Behavioral Analysis: Develop baselines for normal IVI system behavior (e.g., CPU usage, memory consumption, running processes) and alert on significant deviations, which could indicate malicious code execution.
• Over-the-Air (OTA) Updates: Ensure a robust and secure OTA update mechanism is in place to rapidly deploy patches for discovered vulnerabilities.

Mitigation

• Secure Coding Practices: Manufacturers must invest in secure coding training for developers and implement static (SAST) and dynamic (DAST) application security testing throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Architectural Security (D3FEND Network Isolation): Enforce strong network segmentation between the IVI system and critical vehicle control networks (e.g., CAN bus). A firewall or gateway should strictly control and monitor all inter-network communication.
• Attack Surface Reduction: Disable all unnecessary services, ports, and debugging features on production firmware to minimize the attack surface.
• Bug Bounty Programs: Proactively engage with the security research community through private bug bounty programs to discover and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited maliciously.