An ethical hacker compromised the software of a John Deere tractor that does not allow farmers to repair the vehicles themselves or at independent service stations, and then ran the game Doom on its display.
The tractors run a Linux-based operating system that the manufacturer tightly controls. The company disabled tractors stolen by the Russians from Ukraine, or machines from China supplied at the behest of communist authorities.
Australian hacker Sick Codes demonstrated at the Def Con cybersecurity event in Las Vegas how he compromised a John Deere tractor and then ran a version of the popular video game on it.
The game was developed with the help of New Zealand modder Skelegant. In this case, players destroy enemies in a cornfield. In the video we can see how the game runs in a transparent window on the tractor’s display.
Sick Codes stated that the project required several months of work. The compromised tractor model is the John Deere 4240.
Playing Doom on a John Deere tractor display (jailbroken/rooted) at @defcon pic.twitter.com/ih0QUTGNuS
— Sick.Codes (@sickcodes) August 14, 2022
After compromising the tractor’s software, including the use of hardware artifice, the ethical hacker obtained 1.5 GB of data that can be used to diagnose vehicle problems outside the John Deere ecosystem.
Sick Codes believes that based on the discovered vulnerabilities, it will be able to develop a tool that can unlock farm equipment software.
The first Doom game was released in 2003, and its developers included the legendary John Romero.