Fearing the networked car

Here's another little story about Internet of Things fear, well titled "Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It".

As the two hackers remotely toyed with the air-conditioning, radio, and windshield wipers, I mentally congratulated myself on my courage under pressure. That’s when they cut the transmission.

Immediately my accelerator stopped working. As I frantically pressed the pedal and watched the RPMs climb, the Jeep lost half its speed, then slowed to a crawl. This occurred just as I reached a long overpass, with no shoulder to offer an escape. The experiment had ceased to be fun.

The attackers also figured out how to turn off the brakes.

How did they do it?

All of this is possible only because Chrysler, like practically all carmakers, is doing its best to turn the modern automobile into a smartphone. Uconnect, an Internet-connected computer feature in hundreds of thousands of Fiat Chrysler cars, SUVs, and trucks, controls the vehicle’s entertainment and navigation, enables phone calls, and even offers a Wi-Fi hot spot. And thanks to one vulnerable element, which Miller and Valasek won’t identify until their Black Hat talk, Uconnect’s cellular connection also lets anyone who knows the car’s IP address gain access from anywhere in the country. “From an attacker’s perspective, it’s a super nice vulnerability,” Miller says.

This could foreshadow a spate of horror stories.  Think about how Americans see cars as mobile homes and/or expressions of personal strength and independence.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Comments

[Todd]

Spreading already, http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/22/technology/car-hack-plane/index.html

[Bryan Alexander]

Good one
There should be a term for this. Uncanny vehicles? Fearsome engines?