Cyber hacking of cars a continued threat; NHTSA says its understaffed

Cyber hacking of cars a continued threat; NHTSA says itês understaffed

NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind is worried about cyber hacking of cars, and he said his agency has neither enough funds nor staff to deal with the issue, reported Autoblog.com.

The problem came to the forefront in July, when Wired magazine enlisted two hackers who remotely took control of a Jeep Cherokee from across the country and drove it into a ditch, just to show how relatively easy it was. The incident was widely publicized.

NHTSA announced more than a year ago that it would create an Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and automakers agreed to pool their resources to help. But nothing has been set up yet.

Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) recently sent a series of questions to automakers about whether they are prepared to defend against hackers. When they sent a similar survey a year ago, only 2 of 15 automakers reported adequate security measures.

With the increasing development of vehicle-to-vehicle communications, cars will only become more vulnerable to cyberattack.