The rise of electronic components in cars subjects them to a higher hacker attack risk. Currently, the onboard electronics constitutes 35% of the car value, with the prospect of reaching 50% within next ten years. Consequently, digital attacks will be favoured by an ever-rising IT complexity, but with a lower risk perception. As a matter of fact, already today acts of IT piracy in the automotive field are neatly rising, but underestimated.
For this reason, HSB Munich Re has recently carried out an investigation that has surveyed that 37% of the American owners of an electric car are very worried about their cars’ net safety.
Given the acceleration to the shift to electric cars, protecting these vehicles’ IT safety is certainly fundamental. For this reason, the University of Georgia has published a guide concerning electric cars’ information safety.
While previously risks were connected with warranty frauds or mileage alteration, in recent years privacy damages have emerged, cyber blackmails and warfare.
If a hacker attack against one’s own vehicle takes place, some other problems will occur, such as speed and acceleration damaged, decrease of the vehicle’s efficiency, batteries fully discharged and data unreadability on the display.
All signals exerting a negative impact on the vehicle’s safety. A list of suggestions to limit car hacking risks? Monitoring the onboard diagnostics, installing only reliable hardware, performing code reviews, updating software safely and installing a monitoring system of the cyber security.
