This meant that, rather than having to place the test Jeep in diagnostic mode, they could make changes during standard driving.Ĭar hacking is a rapidly growing area of interest for researchers, but not all of it is malicious. Two hackers discovered that, by working out how different components speak to each other, they were able to mimic the car’s controls instead of overwriting individual settings. A worrying attack on the Tesla’s autopilot system led the computer to believe that it couldn’t detect anything because there was nothing there, rather than activating any sort of fail-safe.Īnother issue raised, in systems that did have strong safety features, was whether those features could be disabled. One possibility explored was jamming the sensors of self-driving cars. Tighe is one of the researchers that spoke to The Guardian outside Defcon 24, a hacking convention held in Las Vegas, where a number of teams met up to discuss the latest in car hacking breakthroughs. “Car companies are finally realising that what they sell is just a big computer you sit in,” said Kevin Tighe, senior systems engineer at Bugcrowd. Now, experts at the world’s largest hacking convention claim companies are right to be concerned, as these hacks could cause serious damage.
It’s an area of increasing concern for the FBI and a practice Michigan politicians are cracking down on: car hacking.