A pair of hackers have compromised their Jeep Cherokee, fooling the car into doing dangerous things like turning the steering wheel or activating the parking brake at highway speeds. It’s the same pair that hacked their Jeep remotely last year. But, because this version of the hack requires physical access to the car — in this case, through a laptop connected to the OBD II engine diagnostic port — it may not be quite as scary, except for the fact that they’re controlling way more vehicle systems.
A year ago, the two cybersecurity researchers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, remotely compromised a Jeep Cherokee. They were able to disable the car’s transmission and brakes, and, while the vehicle was in reverse, take over the steering wheel. These were all possible by abusing existing functionality in the car like the self-parallel parking feature, and commanding the vehicle to do things within the vehicle’s limitations.
For example, the steering wheel could only be controlled while the car was going in reverse below a certain speed. That’s because the car’s central computer had checks to ensure that the car would only steer itself when it was in the auto-park mode. Chrysler later issued a patch to fix the vulnerability. – READ MORE
