The ability of hackers to stop a Jeep Cherokee in its tracks while speeding down a highway,
as recounted by Wired magazine, is prompting legislation against vehicle intrusions through the Internet.
Hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek took control of the Jeep driving at highway speed as an example of how vulnerable vehicles can be when connected to the Internet, noted Wired. The two hackers are planning to make a presentation at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas in August.
"The result of their work was a hacking technique — what the security industry calls a zero-day exploit — that can target Jeep Cherokees and give the attacker wireless control, via the Internet, to any of thousands of vehicles," wrote Andy Greenberg, of Wired, who drove the Jeep that Miller and Valasek took over.
"Their code is an automaker's nightmare: software that lets hackers send commands through the Jeep's entertainment system to its dashboard functions, steering, brakes and transmission, all from a laptop that may be across the country."
Such vehicle hacks were highlighted by an episode on
CBS' "60 Minutes" in February. In the episode, Dan Kaufman, of the U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Innovation Office, showed how someone with a laptop could take over the controls of a car.
Kaufman and a DARPA colleague hacked into a vehicle driven by "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl and seized control of the car, including the braking and acceleration.
"I don't think the Internet is broken," said Kaufman. "I think the things we put on the Internet are broken. What we're doing is we're putting a lot of devices on it that are unsecure."
On Tuesday, U.S. Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal introduced legislation that would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Trade Commission to establish federal standards to secure cars and protect drivers' privacy against such hacking.
"Drivers shouldn't have to choose between being connected and being protected," Markey said in a
statement. "We need clear rules of the road that protect cars from hackers and American families from data trackers.
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