Cellular-connected entertainment systems are one way for hackers to remotely access and take control of a vehicle.
However, researchers from UC-San Diego found an even easier way to take the wheel from afar: a 2-inch gadget called a dongle.
Dongles are designed to be plugged into a vehicles’ dashboard to provide data used by insurance firms, as well as trucking fleets, to monitor how a person drives.
The UCSD team reverse engineered the device and figured out they could control a car by sending text message commands.
The researchers notified Mobile Devices, the maker of the dongle, about the security flaws before publicizing their findings. The company says a patch was sent out to fix the security flaws.
