Is Car Hacking A Thing Now? – Grasp 15′
Is Car Hacking A Thing Now? – Grasp 15′
It’s a funny old world we live in, increasingly so in fact. In just this week alone (and I swear this isn’t made up) we’ve learnt of a skateboard produced by the aptly named company “Faceplant” who have an electronic bluetooth remote controlled skateboard design that unfortunately they have found can be hacked. Imagine if you will, an unsuspecting kid, out on his/her bluetooth skateboard when some vindictive so-and-so in a bush remotely hacks the skateboard and jams the brakes on. Hilarious for us of course, but not so hilarious for the kid. This might cause some scraped knees, maybe a replacement hip or two depending on the childs calcium intake but lets extrapolate this scenario outwards to something a little more sinister. Car hacking. We’re not in the business of fearmongering here at Grasp but we do occasionally like to delve into possibilities a little outside of the IT tech norm.
This week expert hacking researchers were able to remotely (yes I said remotely) hack the Tesla Model-S car and shut off the car altogether midway through a test drive. And its not just Tesla. Many household Car manufacturing big guns are aware this is at least an issue to be taken seriously. The issue is the increase of more internet based cars. Externally facing, more modern cars can be connected to the internet for Satnav, engine management and media console purposes and internally facing, brake pedals, accelerator pedals, handbrakes and on it goes, these are electronically controlled in many modern cars. A combination of manipulating these two aspects of modern cars throws up potential hazards.
Currently it is indeed possible to hack cars remotely, its been tested and its at least considered possible. The only real reason its not perhaps a more common occurrence on the roads is the motivation for hackers. That is to say that it is somewhat costly in time and resources to hack a car. However the growing concern is that hackers will be able to source ECU parts compatible with cars on the road to manipulate and attempt to interact with remotely accessible ECUs at a cheaper cost and therefore able to take the hacking war to the world of the automotive industry.
Call us paranoid but hackers never exactly needed money nor theft as the sole motivation to hack and create trouble. Sometimes the ability to say “hey look what I can do” is enough. For now this is a mere curiosity but how long before it becomes “a thing” is finite and will only become more likely as time moves on. Its not all doom and gloom, if you happen to work for Norton, AVG or alike, you’ve got some potential very profitable times ahead!
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