Two U.S. hackers sponsored by the Pentagon's research facility DARPA, demonstrated this week their capability of hacking cars by using computers.
The hackers were able to control acceleration, braking and steering inside a Toyota Prius and Ford Escape according to BBC.com.
This new threat to our vehicles is thanks to the evolution of electronic control units being installed in most new cars.
ECUs are small computers installed in modern cards to control a number of different functions like safety features and the vehicle's temperature, but the computers also mean a bored or revenge-seeking hacker can control your car from any location according to new research.
When revealing their research at security conference Defcon in Las Vegas, Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller said they're hoping to "raise awareness" regarding security issues when buying a new car.
"At the moment there are people who are in the know, there are nay-sayers who don't believe it's important, and there are others saying it's common knowledge but right now there's not much data out there," said Miller, a security engineer at Twitter, said to BBC.com.
The duo received an $80,000 grant from DARPA to see if they could actually hack into a car.
First the researchers were able to connect to the car's computer through the on-board diagnostics port, which is usually used by mechanics to figure out what's wrong with a specific vehicle. After connecting, Valasek and Miller then sent a number of different instructions to the vehicle that differed from the commands given from the driver according to BBC.com.
They were able to disable the brakes, tighten the vehicle's seat-belts, change the speedometer, and took control of the wheel.
"We would love for everyone to start having a discussion about this, and for manufacturers to listen and improve the security of cars," said Miller according to BBC.com.
Valasek and Miller's work has received a mixed reaction from automakers so far and Toyota believes that what the team did wasn't even hacking at all since the researchers had to be physically connected to each vehicle the whole time.
"Altered control can only be made when the device is connected. After it is disconnected the car functions normally," said a Toyota spokesperson. "We don't consider that to be 'hacking' in the sense of creating unexpected behavior, because the device must be connected - ie the control system of the car physically altered."
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