Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have discovered a way to hack into a car’s telematics device and control the vehicle, reports CNET.
The vulnerability was revealed yesterday at the Usenix security conference, where computer science experts managed to engage the internal network of a Chevrolet Corvette by sending SMS messages to the car’s Metromile telematics dongle.
In doing so, the professors were able to activate the car’s windshield wipers and enable and disable its brakes when traveling at low speeds.
While hackers have recently breached such automobiles as Jeep and Tesla, those security flaws were dependent on the automobile’s dashboard entertainment system. Attacks on UBI devices have the potential to be much more devastating, as they allow the perpetrator to gain “direct access to the vehicle’s electronic brain.”
While the researchers only committed this hack on a Corvette, they warn that this “Achilles’ heel” inherent in UBI devices could expose drivers using any car with a telematics dongle in its onboard diagnostics post (OBD-II).