SecTor 2025 | CAN Bus for Car Nerds and Security People Who Should Know Better

In the world of custom car builds, knowing how to turn a wrench is only half the battle — the other half is figuring out why your 700hp engine swap won't talk to the dash, the AC won't work, and the wipers have developed a mind of their own. The answer, nine times out of ten? The CAN (Controller Area Network) bus. So why are we talking about this at SecTor? Because reverse-engineering CAN is shockingly familiar territory: wire-level protocols, undocumented messages, weird vendor quirks, and the occasional "why did they do it that way?" moment. Sound familiar? This session is a crash course in CAN for people who know what a packet sniffer is, even if they've never built a drift car. We'll cover: • What CAN bus is and how it works (without turning it into an EE lecture) • How to reverse-engineer vehicle signals with tools like SavvyCAN, cansniffer, and your favorite logic analyzer • Real-world hacks like tricking factory gauges into working with aftermarket ECUs • Making analog sensors speak fluent CAN • Getting digital clusters, body control modules, and even climate systems to play nice And when all else fails? We'll talk about workarounds, black-boxing, and why sometimes, the answer really is "just cut the wire." Whether you're doing an EV swap, dropping a Hellcat into a 1970s pickup, or just want to understand how thieves steal F-150s by hotwiring the headlight — this session is for you. Brian Bourne | Co-Founder, SecTor Presentation Materials Available at: https://ift.tt/XzqytBJ

source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Mbc0ljhqo