Over-the-air (OTA) updates for cars are often praised as a sign of the future, yet many worry they create new safety concerns.
Practically all new cars sold today are connected to the internet, and cybersecurity experts don't love that.
What happens if bad actors compromise those systems? The answer is more nuanced than "hackers could take over your car while you're driving."
Where The Real Risk Lives
A new report from CNBC focuses on potential vulnerabilities. It's technically possible that connected vehicles could become targets for hackers or even hostile governments.
One Norwegian investigation into Chinese-built electric buses found that manufacturers retained remote access to certain vehicle systems through a cellular connection, prompting further reviews in the UK and Denmark.
Security analysts have also warned that internet-connected vehicles represent an increasingly attractive target for espionage and large-scale cyberattacks.
Those concerns deserve attention, but they're also easy to misunderstand.
Hollywood Vs Reality
The image many have of a hacker and a modern car is worrying: a person with bad intentions gains access to your car and steers it into a ditch.
Modern vehicles simply aren't designed that way.
Sure, they're connected to the internet and full of ECUs that control steering, braking, and acceleration. But there are several reasons a hacker isn't about to take over.
That doesn't make connected cars impossible to compromise. An attacker would likely need to defeat multiple layers of security before reaching safety-critical systems.
Even then, it's unlikely a hacker could manipulate a car the way a real driver can.
The actual danger is scale and inoperability.
The Bigger Threat Is A Kill Switch
The Norwegian investigation demonstrates this perfectly.
Authorities weren't worried that a foreign actor would take over control of the buses and drive them around.
They were concerned that a foreign actor could shut them down at will.
Imagine police cars or public buses that suddenly refuse to start, delivery fleets rendered inoperable, electric vehicles unable to charge, or critical vehicle data quietly siphoned from millions of connected cars.
Attacks like that could wreak economic havoc without anyone ever grabbing the wheel of a moving vehicle.
The saving grace is that the same OTA pipeline used to break in is also how automakers slam the door shut, pushing fixes to millions of cars overnight.
The catch is that this is an arms race with no finish line.
Every new connected feature is another door to guard, and automakers only have to leave one unlocked.
