At the end of 2023, around 75,000 vehicles were driving around with digital license plates in California, Arizona, Michigan, and Texas. While this technology initially seemed like a good idea to some people, there are already cybercriminals figuring out a way to hack these plates to pass on their tolls and tickets. Although the digital license plates are only legal in four states, others are working on legislation to make the technology legal. Here’s what you need to know about digital plates and how cybercriminals are already tapping into them.
What are Digital License Plates?
A digital license plate is a mounted device that uses a screen to display a car’s license plate number and other pertinent information. Obviously, there are a few things that set digital plates apart from the traditional metal plates most of us have. Here are some of the key takeaways.
- Digital license plates can communicate with your vehicle.
- They can be customized, meaning you can have a fun-looking plate if you want to. For businesses, you can also add marketing to your plates.
- These plates can emit radio signals for tracking and monitoring. There is also vehicle recovery support available.
Reviver is currently the sole provider of all digital license plates in the United States. The company has marketed the plates with key features being that they are easy to register and you have the ability to customize them. For commercial vehicles, it can also make fleet management easier.
Where are Digital Plates Legal?
According to Reviver’s website, digital license plates are currently only legal in four states:
- Arizona
- California
- Michigan
- Texas (for commercial use only)
That said, there is movement in other states to make this kind of technology legal. Colorado has passed legislation through the rules and regulations process as of 2022. Georgia has also passed legislation regarding digital plates, but there are ongoing discussions happening with the tolling authority. Illinois’ bill made it through rules and regulations in 2019, but it has not moved forward yet.
Several other states are adopting the technology as well.
- Maryland has a pilot project underway.
- New Jersey introduced legislation in 2022.
- New York is working on introducing legislation.
- North Carolina passed legislation in 2019.
- Ohio plans to introduce legislation in 2025.
- Pennsylvania is running a pilot program.
- Washington working to introduce legislation.
So, while you may not have seen any digital license plates yet, the chances you’ll be seeing them are increasing with time. As with every piece of technology, digital plates are able to be hacked and used against consumers. So, how are cybercriminals using them and how could it impact you?
How Digital License Plates are Being Hacked
WIRED reported that a security researcher uncovered some loopholes in Reviver’s digital license plate system. Josep Rodriguez is a researcher at a security firm called IOActive. He found that there are ways to “jailbreak” plates sold by Reviver. Simply by removing the sticker on the back of the plate and attaching a cable to its internal connectors, he was able to rewrite the firmware in minutes. With the new, custom firmware installed, the jailbroken plate can receive commands via Bluetooth. This allows someone else to change its display to show any characters or images.
Knowing that the digital license plates are able to be hacked this way could allow drivers to evade any system that depends on plate numbers for enforcement or surveillance. “You can put whatever you want on the screen, which users are not supposed to be able to do,” Rodriguez said. “Imagine you are going through a speed camera or if you are a criminal and you don’t want to get caught.”
Tolls and tickets could be shifted to someone else’s plate. More importantly, criminals could switch their plates to avoid the police. “If you can change the license plate number whenever you want, you can cause some real problems,” Rodriguez concluded.
On top of that, Rodriguez pointed out that hacking the plates could also allow the driver to tap into Reviver’s customizable features without paying the $29.99 monthly fee. Ultimately, Reviver would need to go back and replace the chips in the 75K+ plates they’ve already sold. Rodriguez said there is no other way to “patch” the issue. As the sole provider of all the digital license plates, this may be something the company wants to address before continuing to scale up. It could also have an impact on legislators’ opinions on the product.
That’s not the only issue either. In 2022, another security researcher found issues with the company’s web infrastructure. Sam Curry was able to easily hack into the website, make himself an admin, and manipulate license plates.
Reviver’s Response to the Security Problem
Reviver was able to quickly respond to the issue Curry found. However, Reviver is still struggling to find a way to address the jailbreaking problem Rodriguez discovered. IOActive, the company Rodgriguez works for, told WIRED that they’d tried to contact Reviver about the findings of its security experiment for the past year. The company even described its findings to US CERT, which also tried to get in touch with someone at Reviver.
Reviver, on the other hand, told WIRED that they only heard about the jailbreaking research when the publication reached out to them last week. They made a statement about the issue. In it, Reviver points out that the act of jailbreaking one of their license plates “would be a criminal act subject to prosecution by law enforcement.”
The company also tried to back up its technology. They wrote, “the jailbreak technique identified by IOActive requires physical access to the vehicle and plate, plate removal, specialized tools, and expertise” and “this scenario is highly unlikely to occur in real-world conditions, limiting it to individual bad actors knowingly violating laws and product warranties.”
Additionally, Reviver says that it is working on redesigning the digital license plates to avoid using chips that are vulnerable to the hacking technique used by Rodriguez.
Would you consider getting a digital license plate? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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