We are living in
However reliable and safe some autonomous features may often times seem, there are some things that will need to be tweaked and tweaked until they’re nearly perfect in order to ensure the safety of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians alike. Tesla has updated its connectivity software yet again, as the Chinese company, Keen Security Lab has found a way to hack into the controls of a Tesla Model S.
The hack was more or less done to see if such a thing was possible, and if so, how much could be done once in the system. Keen found that quite a few of the vehicles functions could be manipulated, both while parked and while driving. When parked, they were able to control the sunroof, opening of the doors, moving the power seating, and locking out the infotainment and dash screens, rendering them useless for drivers. While the car was moving, Keen found that the windshield wipers could be turned on, the folding mirrors could be manipulated, the rear hatch could be opened, and the brakes could be applied, all from about 12 miles away.
As frightening and potentially dangerous this all may be, Keen did alert Tesla immediately of this security risk they uncovered, to which Tesla responded with a firmware update. Tesla is lucky this was found by a company who had their best interest in mind. If anything, this shows how much work the automotive industry still has to do by way of technology. There are so many factors that still have to be taken into account when improving connected cars. A lot of safety measures, beyond what is used for our standard and more traditional cars have to be considered and anticipated, otherwise we have a whole new breed of vehicular accidents and unfortunate situations ahead of us.
