It used to be that you stuck a key in a hole in your dashboard (and later in your steering column) and that was the end of the electronics. There were a few circuit boards, but mostly there were a lot of electro-mechanical linkages.
Electronics sourcing says there are a thousand chips in a car today and two thousand in an electric car. One estimate says that number might be 8,000 in a few years.
Given all of these chips, there are millions of lines of software in a car. You think that the big pedal that press on to stop your car is somehow connected to the car breaking system. Actually, it is connected to a sensor that detects how hard you are pressing and is ice outside and so on and a computer, somewhere sends a command to a controller to send hydraulic fluid to the brake system which forces the brakes to start slowing the car down, but then there are other sensors that watch for whether the car is skidding and are all wheel slowing and the same speed and if not it engages the anti-lock braking system and so one. Very complicated.
Just today, Tesla announced a recall of almost all cars made since 2017 because of a safety defect where the window doesn’t stop closing if your head or finger is in the way. It used to be that there was an electro-mechanical sensor controlling that but now that is computer controlled. At least, in this case, this does not appear to be the result of hacking.
Also today, Hyundai and Kia (actually the same company) are being sued because of a viral TikTok video that shows how easy it is to steal the car by opening the steering column and plugging a USB cord into a connector to start the car. Other car companies have created complicated software keying systems to try and defeat starting the car if a chip inside the key is not present.
But that software is hackable also. VW tried to do that, but their software was able to be compromised, relatively easily.
One of the big security conferences, which is held in Las Vegas each year, has a car hacking village where people can hack many different cars and learn all about car hacking.
There are even articles online like “the 20 most hackable cars” or “how to hack your car“.
And Wired did a piece where two hackers took over a Jeep, remotely, on the highway, while it was going 60 miles an hour, through the entertainment system. They disable the brakes, for example.
Nowadays, it seems like there is a new car hacking issue every week – at least.
Car makers, until now, were worried about flashy features to sell to consumers.
But if their car shows up on the 10 mostly likely cars to be hacked list, that is not good for sales and might even generate class action lawsuits. So, on top of everything else, car makers now need to worry about security.
Hackers and car thieves now have a common goal. One thief might just want to disarm the alarm and unlock the doors to steal what is in the car, while other thieves might want to unlock, start and drive the car away.
Welcome to the modern world.
