“Vehicle Hacking and Data Theft” – The New Face of Cybercrime

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Image Source: Techopedia
Image Source: Techopedia

As tech evolves rapidly, keeping your data and identity secure is not only more important than it ever was, but it’s all the more difficult than ever. As “good guys” advance, so do “bad guys”. But where does that put us ? Well, at risk..

Our planet Earth that once used to be organic and natural, has now turned into a one world-wide web based giant tech server that is accessible to almost everyone.

So the question is, where are we safe ?

Cars today have more technology than ever before. Now that makes a great selling point for the manufacturers. However, in the car wars of the modern age, consumers are the ones at risk.

The “in-car” communication systems are progressing rapidly and for a normal car buyer, it’s getting harder and harder to figure things out on their “new infotainment systems”.

New features like Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and even third-party navigation apps like Waze, poses a major threat to consumer information as it connects directly to the consumer’s smartphone making it increasingly vulnerable to hackers and scammers.

With that being said, it’s the good guys that create technology for the betterment of humanity and build walls around it to secure it from the bad guys. But scammers and hackers seem to find quicker ways to break in to the private networks through smartphones and various other data operated devices.

The moment we sync our phones to our cars via bluetooth, we open the door to the hackers and expose our information to the database of the car manufacturer. This was supposed to be convenient, how did it become a threat?

Our experts explain how:

  • Hackers gain access to the vehicle manufacturer’s database.
  • This allows them to access customer’s personal information like emails, contacts and payment information stored in the database via customer’s cellphone connection to the car.
  • Using cloud services, the hackers then store and analyze the information.
  • Compromised information is then sold on the black market to other cybercrime organisations.

As unachievable as it may sound, it is very possible that the hackers can someday take control over the safety features of the vehicles, resulting in chaotic situations and causing life threatening accidents.

But for now, we can only hope that companies like Tesla, BMW and General Motors have put essential and effective security systems in place, to prevent this disaster from taking place.