Tesla cars are automated vehicles that are environment friendly and aimed at making travelling a stress-free experience. But a hacker from Germany has proved that driving in Tesla cars can prove fatal as they can be remotely controlled through a hack in the 3rd party vehicle management software.
David Colombo, a hacker from Germany, shared his experience on Twitter by announcing that he has taken control of 23 Tesla vehicles operating in over 10 countries by exploiting software vulnerability.
Colombo also released a video in one of his tweets that saw him unlocking doors and windows, starting the car remotely by disabling the security systems and spying on the passengers, including the driver, by taking control of the in-house camera.
“It is third party software that is at fault and not the Tesla car manufacturing infrastructure. And I am in contact with the Product Security Team of Tesla to inform him about the vulnerability that needs to be fixed quickly,” said Colombo.
Nathan Hamster, an independent security expert who is always busy finding fault in autonomous vehicles, stated the flaw could be in the open source project called Teslamate that spun into a mis-configuration error.
Interestingly, it is unclear whether the management of the Elon Musk owned company will appreciate the discovery and will reward David Colombo accordingly; as the company’s reaction is still pending from the past 8 days of revelation.
Note- Tesla is known to not only produce electric vehicles, but is also working on projects such as solar clean energy that benefit environments. From September 2021, the Elon Musk led company is also developing a technology where internet access can be accessed via satellites.
