Gradually, the world is changing and cyber hackers are going on hacking rampages every day. For the past few years, news about cyber hacks is only limited to email addresses, social network profiles, smartphones, traffic lights, security cameras, etc. But currently, cyber hackers are on the loose. Car hacking is a new threat and your car might just be their next target.
Thanks to technological advancements and new innovations, we can now perform super actions on our cars, like lock it remotely, open the trunk and even trace it via GPS in case it goes missing. Now this is all fun and games until you notice that you have no control over your car anymore. Crazy, right?
The possible cyber attacks that could be carried out
Some cars come pre-equipped with Wi-Fi or OnStar services that allow them to connect to the internet. Despite how much fun these features carry, it could also mean that your car is vulnerable to cyber attacks.
How would you feel if you were driving, enjoying your day like you would normally and a dude from a random place remotely hit the brake of your car? If you ask me, I’d go dumb and look stupid. I would be really frustrated too.
Another car hacking attacks that could be carried out on your car could include controlling other gadgets in your car, like your mp3 players, causing wrong making your driving lights confuse other drivers, which could lead to accidents.
Another thing: Instead of targeting a single car, in particular, these cyber hackers might choose to threaten a large group of cars. By monitoring the location of several most valuable cars that make it sufficing to go through all this risk, hackers have the ability sell unlocked cars to robbers and thieves.
This means they can secretly track cars using GPS coordinates and VIN numbers and then plan to carjack at their leisure and in terms of demand.
Once the GPS tracking information of a car is compromised, its movements can be easily watched and tracked down. Anything you see in movies may be carried out since it is possible with the advance of portable technology to manufacture devices that make it easy to eavesdrop on in-car conversations.
The hacker could also get himself educated about the car owner’s daily lifestyle and exact routines. Even scarier, they will be able to find where the car owner lives.
This is more than a fallacy or one cooked-up science fiction; it’s is the real thing and it might be your turn to witness these frustration-triggering cyber hacks one day.
What could be done to protect users from car hacking?
Having a connected car doesn’t mean you are definitely going to end up being a cyber hacker’s lab rat. But prevention is better than cure. According to KPMG, the following practices should be carried out by automakers to ensure the safety of their users against car hacking:
- Embed security and privacy at the earliest phases of product and software development
- Include cybersecurity in enterprise-wide risk governance
- Focus not just on the data but also on the entire ecosystem
- Be good citizens when it comes to customer data privacy
- Remember the three tenets of data security
- Prepare for emerging security risks
- Encrypt information coming into the master computer
- Test vulnerabilities
- Put safety first
- Build a “three-legged stool
