Hackers Manage to Take Over a Jeep’s Brakes, Make Watch Dogs Seem Much Less Silly

Many modern cars have been designed to feel like smartphones — and as we all know, any computer can be hacked, provided you know where to look for security holes. Two hackers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, are on a mission to increase awareness about the insecurity of current cars’ computational systems, and they’ve proven their point admirably by hacking a Jeep’s brakes.

Miller and Valasek have also hacked the Jeep’s air conditioning, sound system, steering, and transmission. Some of these hacks could result in a harmless poltergeist prank … but the brakes? There’s just no reason to do that unless you’re trying to get away with the perfect murder. Annnnd this is officially the news item that gets us all put on an FBI watch-list.

Miller and Valasek’s haunted car antics remind me of cyberpunk settings in which characters can hack anything and everything, such as in the videogame Watch Dogs, a game that felt pretty unrealistic until right this second. Luckily, Miller and Valasek aren’t super-villains, so they’re using their influence to inspire a Senate bill that seeks to impose standards on car security. Here’s hoping this hacking loophole will only appear in an upcoming Castle episode, and never in a real-life crime scene.

(via Wired)

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