A 19-year-old hacker claims to have remotely opened the doors and windows of over 25 Tesla vehicles in 13 countries, as well as turned= on their radios, flash their headlights, and even start their engines and begin "keyless driving." David Colombo, who claims to be an IT specialist based in Germany, also claims to have been able to disable the vehicles' anti-theft systems and determine whether or not a driver is present.
In a Monday tweet, Colombo claimed to have "complete remote control" of the Teslas, but later explained that he was never able to take over automobiles to "remotely manage steering or acceleration and braking."
"Yes, I potentially could unlock the doors and start driving the affected Tesla’s," he tweeted. "No I cannot intervene with someone driving (other than starting music at max volume or flashing lights) and I also cannot drive these Tesla’s remotely." Colombo tweeted on Tuesday that his breach was "not a vulnerability in Tesla's system," but rather "it’s the owners faults."
Colombo stated on Twitter that he was able to disable Sentry Mode, an anti-theft feature in which a built-in camera functions as a de facto alarm system. When an alert is triggered, cameras begin filming in the area around the vehicle. The video is then streamed to the vehicle's owner via a mobile app.
This is not the first time that a Tesla vehicle has been hacked. The Tesla Model X's Autopilot was hacked many times in 2020. In one case, Israeli researchers from Ben Gurion University deceived the car by flashing "phantom" images on a road, wall, or sign, leading it to brake suddenly or steer in the wrong way. A few months later, Wired reported that Lennert Wouters, a researcher at KU Leuven, "stole" a Tesla Model X in 90 seconds.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last fall that he will cooperate with regulators to ensure that electric car drivers' personal data is safe from hackers. With the rapid rise of autonomous driving technology, data security in automobiles is causing more public worry than ever before, he said through remote hook-up at an electric vehicle conference in China.
By 2025, an estimated 470 million automobiles will be linked to a computerized database, making them prime targets for cybercriminals. According to Tech Monitor, the automobile cybersecurity industry is predicted to be worth $4 billion by that same year.
