Tesla Car Hacked in a Competition
A Tesla electric car has been successfully hacked by a security research duo at the Pwn2Own contest, an annual hacking competition held this year in Vancouver. They had executed codes on the car’s firmware which eventually hacked the electric car by managing to display a message on its entertainment system. Tesla addressed the hacking incident, and said that they will “release a software update that addresses this research” in order to ensure their cars’ security.
In addition to hacking the Tesla car, the same team also managed to hack and take down Apple Safari, easily escaping its security defence. Other security researchers have also managed to successfully hack browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Firefox, as well as hypervisors Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Workstation.
Hacking smart cars is unfortunately, quite plausible, with Trend Micro’s research showing unsecure mobile applications can leak sensitive information. It can go as far as locking you out of your mobile applications, stealing your personal information and data, enabling the hackers to gain access to your car’s computer, which then leads to hijacking the car altogether. To prevent this from happening, Trend Micro is working in conjunction with car manufacturers to improve their security and to avoid any further hacks which could compromise your car’s safety.
