New Cars Are More And More Vulnerable To Hackers

Recently, an advocacy group for consumers has issued a warning that carmakers are making new vehicles more and more vulnerable to cyber hacks, which could lead to lots of deaths if mass cyberattack ever happens. According to the Consumer Watchdog's report, the number of internet-connected cars is rapidly increasing these days, but that growth also poses a significant security threat.

The report states that the problem is that these new type of cars have their critical safety systems linked up to the net without an appropriate security measure. Plus, there is no method to disconnect them if cyberattack ever happens.

The report also mentions that many industry executives knew about this risk but decided to put corporate profit on top on safety.

Consumer Watchdog published this report based on a 5-month study with the participation of over 20 whistleblowers in the industry.

Experts and technologists in the car industry speculated that a mass cyberattack at rush hour could result in at least 3,000 casualties.

One unidentified whistleblower commented that you can control lots of your car's aspects right from your phone. That includes checking the location, starting the air-con, igniting the engine, etc. But if you can do that via the smartphone, other people can do that over a good wifi signal.

This reports also recommends that all connected vehicles should have an internet kill switch. All new car should isolate the critical safety systems from the connected infotainment systems as well as other networks.

Jamie Court (Consumer Watchdog's president) said that having the safety-critical system linked to the internet is a dangerous design. He also added that U.S companies must end this practice or the Congress should step in in order to protect our national security and transportation system.