Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) just released a strident report [hyperlink opens PDF] accusing some of the biggest automakers in the marketplace of getting no clue how to avoid hackers from taking over your auto. It is just the most current in an ongoing—and sometimes breathlessly overblown—national conversation about the perils of our increasingly digital automobiles.
The report quizzed 16 significant automakers on the vulnerability of their cars to hacking, and how they counteract or detect hacking events. The response wasn’t great.
Sen. Markey’s report says that “nearly 25 % of cars on the market include wireless technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusions.” It goes on to report that most carmakers are “unaware of or unable to report on previous hacking incidents,” that safety measures preventing remote access to automobile electronics are “inconsistent and haphazard across all automobile manufacturers,” and that carmakers gather “large amounts of data on driving history [...] and most do not describe successful means to secure the data.”
U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)
Tellingly, the report claims that “many companies did not seem to comprehend the inquiries posed by Senator Markey.” Have been the Senator’s concerns too abstruse, showing a lack of understanding of the state of the art of automotive tech? Have been the automobile businesses feigning ignorance to keep away from answering for their undisclosed data collection and lazy safety? Or do automakers truly have no idea the extent to which their automobiles can be hacked?
“Drivers have come to rely on these new technologies, but unfortunately the automakers haven’t carried out their component to shield us from cyberattacks or privacy invasions,” Markey stated in a statement.
The Markey report comes just a day after 60 Minutes aired a segment purportedly showing how easily a nefarious hacker can gain comprehensive control of a contemporary car, component of a larger report about the Division of Defense and DARPA’s investigation into producing the next generation of world wide web-connected devices hacker-proof.
As has been correct in the previous, the 60 Minutes report, which you can watch in full on the CBS News internet site, was heavy on shock footage, which includes shots of a terrified Lesley Stahl mashing a seemingly unresponsive brake pedal as a laptop-wielding hacker gleefully requires control of her car from across the parking lot.
“This is a regular new car,” Stahl’s voiceover reports, puttering around a parking lot in what’s clearly a final-generation Chevy Impala.
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“Using a laptop, the hacker dialed the car’s emergency communication program and transmitted a series of tones that flooded it with data,” Stahl explains, seemingly referring to the Impala’s OnStar method. “As the car’s pc attempted sorting it out, the hacker inserted an attack that reprogrammed the computer software, gaining total remote control.” Even though it’s achievable that hydraulic enhance would disappear if the engine were turned off, thereby requiring much more stress from the driver to attain a quit, it is very unlikely that the car’s brakes would just cease functioning regardless of what a hacker had carried out.
But that claim feels a bit more plausible than the last time the topic of automobile hacking entered the mainstream media. Back in 2013, a report revealed the hackability of current automobiles, and news outlets latched on—but largely neglected to highlight that the would-be hacker necessary to plug a physical device into the vehicle in order to achieve handle.
The reality is that modern vehicles are enormously complex and increasingly connected. As the Markey report rightly points out, new automobiles typically are capable of transmitting driving history and individual car data without having owners being created explicitly conscious, and opt-out procedures are either unexplained or nonexistent. The same privacy issues that circle about our web-connected devices at home are reaching into our automobiles, and most of us are ignorant of their extent.
And with Bluetooth, WiFi, keyless entry, GPS navigation, and cellular telematics systems like OnStar, today’s vehicles have grow to be inextricably connected to the so-called internet of things. The threat of poor actors employing that capability to take more than a vehicle is genuine, and the analysis that DARPA is undertaking to discover vulnerabilities in the cars we buy is just as crucial as the organization’s anti-hacking efforts focused on drones, military communications, and our nation’s infrastructure.
But till we get a much better understanding of exactly what hackers are capable of, and exactly how they can worm their way into our cars, it’s very best to take these reports with a grain of salt. After all, 60 Minutes has a bit of a shaky history when it comes to reporting on automobiles.
This story originally appeared on roadandtrack.com.
Senator Issues Report Saying Automakers Are Clueless About Automobile Hacking
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