Hackers Remotely Hacked This Car Running at 70mph on Highway

As our vehicles become smarter and more dependent on computers, the risk of a car hack automatically increases. Articles titled how to hack a car are being written and it is looking like a nightmare to the car manufacturers. As a result, car hack vulnerability is one of the most researched topics in the automobile industry that. Recently, Wired wrote about how hackers executed a car hack using a software vulnerability and controlled a journalist’s car remotely.

The hacked car shown above was running at 70mph (113kph), and now it’s is all over the internet. The car hacks aren’t as new as they seem, people have been attempting and finding new ways to take over the vehicles. Usually how to hack a car tutorials or incidents involve hardware damage. But, this Fiat Chrysler hack is one of its kind as security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek hacked the car from miles away.

Andy Greenberg, writer at Wired, volunteered to be the guinea pig for the hack. He writes:

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.

Hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, from 10 miles away, intruded into car’s software in a real-world test to cease the SUV’s engine and played with the features like locks, radio and air conditioning.

The code used by the hacker to hack the car is nightmarish for the vehicle manufacturers as this software can sneak through the car’s entertainment system from a PC located miles away.

Miller, a former NSA hacker, and Valasek, director of vehicle security at IOActive consultancy, have been in touch with Fiat for past 9 months. This has enabled the company to release a fix. Miller and Valasek are planning to release a fix ahead of the Black Hat security conference next month on Las Vegas.

An Open Source Car Hacking Device That Easily Hacks Cars

Miller tweeted on Tuesday, “of course we didn’t actually attack any vehicles except our own, cause we’re good guys” and he estimates that about 471,000 vulnerable vehicles are on the road.

This car hack took place back in 2014 and it was recently published online. Fiat Chrysler has confirmed that they are in touch with the car hackers and the company calls it inappropriate to disclose how to hack a car information publicly.

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