The researchers said that they could also plant a Trojan on the Tesla Model S network to remotely access the vehicle, but now Tesla Model S bug has been fixed.
Advertisement
In the case of the Model S, Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer of Lookout, and Marc Rogers, principal security researcher at Cloudflare, decided to try to hack a Tesla because the company has a better reputation for understanding software than most competitors. They want to know if the company will be able to deliver 55,000 electric cars this year.
For its part, Tesla has told several media outlets that it has already developed a fox to address the vulnerabilities uncovered by Mahaffey and Roger, and will disseminate it to customers through an over-the-air software update.
Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) reported a smaller-than-expected second-quarter loss late Wednesday, but its stock fell as it signaled its full-year deliveries target is at risk. The most severe among them required physical access to the car-the electronic equivalent of hotwiring.
The automaker said that its security team works carefully with the security research community to make sure that it continues to save its systems against susceptibilities by frequently validating, stress-testing, and upgrading its safeguards. Well, to their surprise, researchers from two security firms found a way to shut down one of their cars.
The news comes just weeks after Fiat Chrysler began the recall of over 1.4m cars in the US after security researchers revealed one of its cars could be hacked.
As far as auto cybersecurity goes, however, the researchers did mention that Tesla is at the top of the list.
The two San Francisco based hackers notified Tesla about the security issues via an email. It’s quick reaction to this recent event can attest to that.
Advertisement
During its quarterly letter to shareholders, Tesla confirmed that its Model X was coming in September, although those Tesla Model X deliveries will be limited for a short period of time. “It also, however, has a number of areas where we believe Tesla can improve”.
