As if Elon Musk’s woes were any less, here comes another blow to his companies’ repute. Tesla self-driving cars have been the centre of unwanted attention due to their involvement in accidents, and now Tesla Model S has been exposed to be vulnerable to hacking.
A team of researchers used a WiFi network and a browser to wirelessly attack a Tesla Model S. They were successful in their attempt, and took over its internal electronic components including the car’s brakes. Adding insult to the injury, they pulled it off from 12 miles away.
These ethical hackers have been testing the Tesla S model for its soft spots, and apparently, they managed to find them quite easily. Besides taking control over the brakes, they also took control over electronic equipment such as the windshield wipers, the door locks and the trunk. Although this isn’t the first time someone has hacked a Tesla, but this is one the very few occasions when the hackers could take so much control over the car from that kind of distance.
The hackers also revealed that the hack was done using a car connected to a malicious wi-fi network and using Tesla’s inbuilt browser. And for a car on the road, this possibility isn’t exactly out of the world. The research team has sent their findings to the company, who have who issued a security patch to fix the problems, for now.
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