ZIENDemonstrates Vehicle Infotainment System Hacking at Pwn2Own Automotive 2025 in Tokyo, Japan
ZIEN, an XIoT security convergence company, announced on February 3rd that they successfully hacked a vehicle's infotainment system at the global hacking competition 'Pwn2Own Automotive 2025'.
Pwn2Own, organized by Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), is a global hacking competition aimed at identifying and improving security vulnerabilities in the automotive industry. As vehicles become increasingly sophisticated devices with electrification, autonomous driving, and electric vehicles trending, public and industry interest in Pwn2Own continues to grow annually. This event was held in Tokyo, Japan from January 22nd to 24th.
Participants demonstrated security vulnerabilities in various vehicle systems including infotainment, tethering devices, and diagnostic systems. The discovered vulnerabilities are reported to manufacturers for improving actual vehicle security.
ZIEN's research team successfully demonstrated the process of analyzing Kenwood's vehicle infotainment head unit, gaining system privileges and administrative access through command injection attacks via memory manipulation. Specifically, they used the acquired privileges for further analysis, triggered system memory crashes, and executed system control code to obtain administrator privileges.
A Pwn2Own representative praised ZIEN, stating, "The whitepaper ZIEN submitted regarding the security vulnerability was the highest quality among all submissions," and expressed hope for ZIEN's participation in future competitions.
Previously, ZIEN's research team had earned their participation qualification by reporting an unknown vulnerability in IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment) to the organizers. IVI refers to the in-vehicle infotainment system that integrates functions such as navigation, vehicle status monitoring, and phone calls. As IVI constantly connects with multiple devices, it's considered both a critical and vulnerable component of automotive security.
ZIEN's CEO Young-min Cho stated, "Participating in this Pwn2Own event has been a major milestone in proving ZIEN's potential and technical capabilities," and added, "Based on this experience, we will strengthen our position as a technology leader in the global market.”
Source : Tech World