But the new technology in your vehicle could be vulnerable to hackers looking to overpower the controls while you’re driving.
Video posted to YouTube shows well-known hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek demonstrating how they could control a car using a laptop — from tightening the seat belt, to controlling the steering wheel.
At the time the video was posted, they had to connect their laptop to the dashboard. But now that many cars come with wireless connectivity, they’ve figured out a way to do it while away from the car.
“Honestly, it’s pretty scary,” Jared Plost said.
Plost, who works at Action News, owns a Jeep Grand Cherokee. It’s one of the models the hackers chose for their experiment.
The hackers found that newer model Chrysler 200s and some Dodge Ram models could also be at risk.
“We have enough accidents on the road here that just anything to add to those statistics. It’s not something we need,” Plost said.
The problem is focused on the wireless network called Uconnect that links the vehicles to the Sprint Network.
Action News spoke to systems engineer and analyst, Brian Cox, who said hackers can scan the area for cars on the Sprint network that are using UConnect.
Cox said the hackers have limitations.
“Day-to-day driving down the road, you really don’t have anything to be scared about. It’s a specific set of circumstances to be able to exploit this stuff and the range is only a couple of feet,” Cox said.
And the flaw is not specific to certain makes or models.
“It’s all the newer cars that are coming with these feature sets. It’s very difficult to find one without,” Cox said.
Plost said he would like to see more done to keep hackers out.
“Invest in the right technologies … to prevent this going forward,” Plost said.
Chrysler put out a blog explaining the situation and offering a solution for customers. The fix requires a software update for only certain models. According to Chrysler, there have not been any unlawful or unauthorized hacks.
Miller and Valasek were conducting an investigation to see if they could hack into the system, but the vulnerabilities they found are not specific to one make or model.
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