If the windows of your cars got down and up, and the radio turned on with the volume on the max. Don’t call ghostbusters. However, you should consider a 19-year-old hacker who wants to play with you.
25 Teslas spread out across 13 countries were hacked by David Colombo, who is an IT specialist based in Germany, through a software vulnerability.
How did he control Tesla’s cars?
The researcher shared a post on Twitter claiming that he could remotely control some features on Tesla’s vehicles without their owners’ knowing. Like, set the stereo volume and playing with the vehicle’s doors and windows.
In addition, he could start the vehicles remotely. Also, determine the exact location of the car and know whether the driver was in the car or not. Colombo said that the fault does not fall on Elon Musk’s company but on Tesla’s owners. He confirmed that the fault falls on third-party software. Through the vulnerability, the hacker could use the internal cameras to spy on the driver.
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‘I’m in contact with the Tesla Product Security Team as well as the third-party maintainer to coordinate disclosure and get the affected owners notified as well as a mitigation/patch for the vulnerability rolled out,’ he said.
Yes, I potentially could unlock the doors and start driving the affected Tesla‘s.
No I can not intervene with someone driving (other than starting music at max volume or flashing lights) and I also can not drive these Tesla‘s remotely.
[7/7]
— David Colombo (@david_colombo_) January 11, 2022
Tesla’s software issue is how it stores the owner’s information that links the vehicles to the program.
‘If my reports to the involved parties would not have some kind of severity then the Tesla Security Team would probably not investigate this issue. The third-party maintainer would probably not release patches in connection to this, and tech / cyber security reporters with access to my writeup probably would not have reported on this issue in the way they do,’ Colombo said.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk ensures that Tesla will protect the personal data of electric car drivers from hackers.
