LOS ANGELES — Automakers are betting heavily that consumers will want not just the maps and music playlists of today but also Internet-enabled vehicles that stream movies and turn dictation into e-mail. The federal government wants to require cars to send each other electronic messages warning of dangers on the road.
In these and other connections, hackers see opportunity.
There are no publicly known instances of a car being commandeered outside of staged tests. But in those tests, hackers prevail.
One was the Defense Department-funded assault on a 2012 model American-made car. Hackers demonstrated they could create the electronic equivalent of a skeleton key to unlock the car’s networks.
The so-called Auto-ISAC will allow participating companies to evaluate the credibility of threats and, in the event of an attack, let one warn others so they could test their own systems. The effort was announced this summer at the Cyberauto Challenge in Detroit, one of an increasing number of programs focused on auto hacking. The Associated Press
