A few days back, the news of hackers hacking into the Jeep Cherokee from a distance of almost 10 miles, using just a laptop and mobile phone, created quite some stir. It really worried the owners and company alike, thus, Chrysler voluntarily issued a recall of 1.4 million affected vehicles to update its software.
Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, the security researchers, believed that entertainment system available in vehicles can allow tech whiz to hack into vehicles.
To make their point, they hacked into a Jeep Cherokee while sitting in their sofa, 10 miles away from the vehicle. They used their laptop and a mobile phone along with wireless internet connection to pull this hack.
They have stated that, at the Def Con hacker conference next month, they are going to reveal more information about their years of work investigating car control systems.
Manipulating their software “constitutes a criminal action,” that’s what Fiat said about the action taken by the two hackers. Fiat also added that in order to exploit this flaw, one requires unique and extensive skills set, technical knowledge, extended periods of time to write the code for hack and last but not least, prolonged physical access to a subject vehicle.
According to the company, they are unaware of any injuries caused by software exploitation, so far. There are up to 1.4 million vehicles said to be affected by this issue and all of them have been sold in the United States, and they are all fitted with uConnect system which gives hackers the access to the central computer.
No, they are not. A spokesperson for Fiat Chrysler has recently told BBC that the vehicles sold in the United Kingdom were not affected at all. In a separate research project from the UK’s NCC Group, security experts demonstrated the potential possibility of cars to be hacked through its digital radio, which allows hackers to take control through creating a DAB station.
Here is the list of vehicles that are affected by this issue.
