As fantastic as technology is these days and as hot as security seems to be, there’s always someone out there who can break it. This was demonstrated this week by a team of hackers from Chinese firm Keen Security. They managed to hack into a Tesla Model S and could open and close the doors, slide the seats back and forth, open the sunroof and trunk, move the side mirrors, turn the windshield wipers on and off, and even interfere with the brakes, even though they were 12 miles away, and the Autopilot mode was not even enabled.
The hackers managed to break into Tesla’s system by creating a malicious WiFi hotspot that the car unknowingly connected to while browsing the web. Then, once connected, the car’s CAN bus was used to manipulate the settings. There was nothing malicious about what the team was trying to do so they informed Tesla immediately of what they had achieved. Tesla then immediately responded by deploying a patch over the air that would protect other Tesla drivers from experiencing the same issue.
But, it’s not just Tesla owners that are at risk from this type of hacking. Most cars today will have a CAN bus and therefore would all be vulnerable to hacking. In 2014, Jeep was the subject of a similar vulnerability involving the Cherokee that saw the company recalling 1.4 million Jeeps to patch the problem. Unfortunately, as with most hacking, the only way to truly protect yourself from it is to stay away from the internet.
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