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“Researchers Show How a Car’s Electronics Can Be Taken Over Remotely”

The New York Times reports on research by UW CSE’s Yoshi Kohno, UCSD’s (and UW CSE Ph.D. alum) Stefan Savage, and their colleagues Steve Checkoway, Damon McCoy, Brian Kantor, Danny Anderson, Hovav Shacham, Karl Koscher, Alexei Czeskis, and Franziska Roesner, which was presented on Friday to the National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board.

“Because many of today’s cars contain cellular connections and Bluetooth wireless technology, it is possible for a hacker, working from a remote location, to take control of various features — like the car locks and brakes — as well as to track the vehicle’s location, eavesdrop on its cabin and steal vehicle data, the researchers said.  They described a range of potential compromises of car security and safety.

“‘This report explores how hard it is to compromise a car’s computers without having any direct physical access to the car,’ said [UW CSE Ph.D. alumnus] Stefan Savage of the University of California, San Diego, who is one of the leaders of the research effort.”

Read the article in the Times here.  Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security here. An article in Technology Review is here. ComputerWorld covers this research here.