University of California researchers in San Diego wirelessly hacked the brakes of a Corvette through its on-board diagnostics (OBD) device.
The device is what insurance companies use to monitor speed and location of vehicles, and thus demonstrating that not only Corvettes will be vulnerable to this kind of attack, but all cars that have the device.
In the video, researchers were able to activate the windshield wipers and engage or disengage the brakes of a 2013 model Corvette by sending an SMS message to the OBD dongle's cellular radio, The Verge reports.
"We acquired some of these things, reverse engineered them, and along the way found that they had a whole bunch of security deficiencies," says Stefan Savage, the University of California at San Diego computer security professor who led the project, Wired reports.
Savage continues to say that the dongles "provide multiple ways to remotely...control just about anything on the vehicle they were connected to."
The device in question is built by France-based company, Mobile Devices. However, it is marketed by San Francisco insurance company Metromile, which offers pay-per-mile insurance based on data logged by the dongle, according to Fast Company.
You'll be glad to hear that Mobile Devices has already patched its hardware in response to the findings, and that the phone numbers for these dongles aren't normally public. Meaning, specific targeting will require a lot of force to guess the number of one dongle, according to Engadget on MSN.
