Are you concerned about automobiles being hacked? Sure there are headlines about attacks and threats, but is there truth and fact in these attacks?
To be fair there is ample evidence to be concerned about the risks. There have been clear demonstrations of cars taken over and remotely controlled. But to be clear these hacks occurred after a long period of investigation. The risk of cars…to me… is no different than the risk of the internet of things. We have devices that you don’t normally think of needing updates and patches. We have devices that are probably hard to patch (one doesn’t normally think of rebooting a car does one?) We have a thing that most of us can’t service ourselves and must rely on the vendors and “consultants” (car dealers and mechanics) of varying quality that we have to rely on.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of driverless cars, of technology that can drive me automatically to where I want to go, of technology that will ensure that we can be mobile at any age of our lives. But with every technology we build, there are always people that will want to make that technology not work.
So when you buy a car and there is technology under the hook, ask about how that technology gets serviced. Is it over the air patching? Do you have to take the car to the dealer to get boards “flashed”?
It’s time to ask hard questions of all of our vendors.