Most smart car vulnerabilities can be easily exploited

Remember that cyber-experiment when a couple of hackers managed to take control over a speeding car in the middle of the highway?

Well, IOActive has published a study, entitled Commonalities in Vehicle Vulnerabilities, after three years of testing, and the results are quite scary.

It tested a "leading vehicle manufacturer", discovering that half of the found vulnerabilities could allow hackers either partial or full control over the target vehicle.

What’s more, almost three quarters of these vulnerabilities could be exploited quite easily, which makes IOActive conclude that they most likely will be exploited.

Half of the vulnerabilities found (50 percent) are deemed "critical" or "high impact" because they would draw much media attention, could mean regulatory violation, or could have serious effects on the vehicle.

Almost three quarters (71 percent) of vulnerabilities were deemed "medium".

"The days when a rogue street urchin wielding a coat hanger was the main threat to vehicle security are long gone", says Corey Thuen, senior security consultant at IOActive and whitepaper author. "As the report shows, we have uncovered a number of ‘hair-on-fire’ vulnerabilities that could easily be exploited at any moment. Manufacturers really need to wake up to the risks they face in the connected world", he says.

"The most effective cyber security work occurs during the planning, design and early implementation phases of the products, with the difficulty and cost of remediation increasing in correlation with product age and complexity", Thuen adds.

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