Car-hacking research initiative in Virginia shows how even older vehicles could be targeted in cyber attacks.
A state trooper responding to a call starts his vehicle but is unable to shift the gear from park to drive. The engine RPMs suddenly spike and the engine accelerates, no foot on the pedal. Then the engine cuts off on its own. The unmarked 2012 Chevrolet Impala from the Virginia State Police’s (VSP) fleet has been hacked — but luckily, by good hackers.
This is what police officers could someday face in the age of car hacking. It’s just one in a series of cyberattacks waged on the VSP’s Impala and on one of its 2013 Ford Taurus marked patrol cars as part of an experiment by a public-private partnership to test how state trooper vehicles could be sabotaged via cyber attacks. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe in May first announced the initiative, which was aimed at protecting the state’s public safety agencies and citizens from vehicle-hacking.
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