Upcoming Cyber Security Threats Part 5: Hackers Controlling Your Car

Do you wonder what future cyber security threats the cyber crooks are working on to steal our money, through our computer use? According to Computerworld, the cybercriminal list of future law-breaking hacking includes:

- text-message malware

- hacking into smart grids

- social network account spoofing

- cyber stalking

- hackers controlling your car

- GPS jamming and spoofing.

My thoughts on this list are that the threats are plausible (at least one has already begun), the targets are available (or will be), and there is money to be made for the cybercriminal organizations that sponsor these threats. But what really grabs my attention about these future threats is that their development will require resources such as funding, expert programmers, and intelligence, that would mirror the investment in research and development of top corporations. And is easily affordable by the cybercrime organizations because of the large amounts of money they have amassed in recent years…our money.

These six threats will each be addressed in a series of articles on this blog continuing with Hackers Controlling Your Car in this post.

Hackers controlling your car?? How? and…why? I know this sounds pretty far out there, considering most of today’s hacking takes place on the Internet and your computer. And usually for reasons that include theft, retribution, or nation-state spying. So why your car? I can only imagine that in the beginning the reason will be because it’s a challenge to some hackers to pull it off first. But I’d expect that cybercrime will raise it’s ugly head and get involved by extorting money from car owners to avoid crashing the vehicle, avoid infection and/or have the malware removed.

That being the “why” of this, let’s talk about the “how” of it. “Connected” cars are the trend right now. Vehicles being sold today provide 3G network access, a Wi-Fi router, and the ability to tap into your home Wi-Fi network. And soon, the next few years, will offer wireless access for Web browsing and streaming high-definition movies. It’s obvious, even to the less informed computer user, that the computers being installed in automobiles are as capable and powerful as better-than-average home computers. So…now that automobiles have a “hackable” computer onboard, let’s look at how a hacker can get to it.

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego working on the probability of this type of attack have already been successful breaking into the onboard computer with a laptop inside the car. They were able to remotely disable the brakes, and cause a car’s engine to surge in speed. It’s only a matter of time until this hacking can be done remotely, from a longer distance, using the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communications attached to the onboard computer. In fact, the onboard communications to be installed by 2013 have a range of the distance of one or two highway lanes. This is sufficient to allow an attack from another vehicle in close proximity to the vehicle being attacked. Here’s a scenario that might take place in an attack between two moving vehicles:

Attacker takes control of the onboard computer and disables the brakes and/or surges the speed of the car. Then calls the operator of the vehicle being attacked on their cell phone and informs them that their car is under the control of attackers. Their next instruction will be to give them the numbers of all debit and credit cards in the vehicle…in order to avoid further tampering with the brakes and speed, and possibly a fatal crash.

This type of attack isn’t possible at this time, however, it’s only a matter of time before the “connected” vehicles are in full production and available to the public. And hackers and cybercriminals will be ready to attack shortly thereafter. Vehicle manufacturers can help this situation by hardening their onboard computers to protect from attack. This can be accomplished by encrypting all software and communications, using very strong passwords, firewalls, and secured Wi-Fi routers on the vehicle’s computers…let’s hope they do so.

Remember, be very careful…it’s dangerous out there.

Please comment on this subject; we all learn from each other when our views and opinions are shared.

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Home computing is a blast…keep it safe, productive and enjoyable.

Best regards,

Paul

paulshomecomputing(at)yahoo.com

Ref: Computerworld article Six rising threats from cybercriminals