Disgruntled hacker remotely disables 100 vehicles

Eagle — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:37:40 +0000

Omar Ramos-Lopez, a wanted 20 year old ex-employee of the Texas Auto Center car dealership in Austin, remotely disabled 100 cars from the dealership after he was laid off from his job. The Texas Auto Center equipped cars with a blackbox under the dashboard which allows a central computer to either shut down the vehicle’s ignition and/or sound the horn. The service is provided by WebTech Plus and gives the dealership the option of shutting down a car remotely versus sending out the repo men in case of non payment. Mr. Ramos-Lopez exploited the central computer system and affected 100 vehicles. 100 Texas Auto Center customers are probably asking the dealership a number of interesting questions today.

That’s the first we’ve heard of dealers equipping their cars with these gadgets, and the first we’ve heard of a hacker exploiting the gadget. The difference between an exploit scenario and a real exploit is only a mouse click away.

Via Danger Room. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/hacker-bricks-cars/

Eagle Intelligence » online exploit

Disgruntled hacker remotely disables 100 vehicles