From car-jacking to car-hacking

By RELAXNEWS | 21 September 2015


FRANKFURT: A connected car may be catching everyone’s attention and imagination at this year’s Frankfurt International Motor Show, but there’s word that with such new technology, it also opens the door to new dangers – hacking.

Carmakers at this year’s motor show are keen to show off their brave new world of intelligent, digitised models, but an incident in the US earlier this year involving computer hackers remotely took control of a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

The vehicle was still being driven on a motorway at that time and following the hack, it was subsequently brought to a standstill.

The car industry must now find way of convincing consumers that these new super-computers on wheels are both safe and secure.

After the incident, Jeep was forced to recall 1.4 million vehicles in the US.

Around 150 million connected cars will be on the road worldwide in 2020, according to estimates by consultancy firm Gartner.

For the moment, analysts say that there isn’t a clear economic model for hacking cars, but once a car starts storing sensitive data, then this will start attracting criminals who vigilantly keep pace with any technological advancements.

For example, such a risk could arise if connected cars are synchronised with drivers' smartphones containing personal credit card or bank account details.

In London, for example, around 6,000 cars were stolen in 2014 without being broken into, but simply by hacking their electronic locks, according to the city's police.

Nevertheless, the industry is not always moving at the same pace on the matter.

Daimler boasts that the data collected by the group is stored on its own secure servers, rather than those of third parties, contrary to come of its rivals, according to Daimler chief executive officer Dieter Zetsche.

PSA Peugeot Citroen is collaborating with IT giants such as Cisco on an electronic architecture for its cars, as well as "some players from the military sector," says the company’s director of connected services business unit Brigitte Courtehoux.

US manufacturer Tesla is taking the bull by its horns and working together with hackers themselves.

This week, US giant Intel set up a new research group, the Automotive Security Review Board, to look into ways of reducing the risks of connected car hacking.

In Germany, Volkswagen announced a similar cybersecurity research project with insurer Allianz, and chemicals giants BASF and Bayer.

"A connected car is only secure for a short time" until a chink in the armour can be found, said Kaspersky director of futures technologies projects Andrey Nikishin.

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