Telegraph, 11 February 2016: "Fear of hacking car on highway"

“On-board computers easily cracked. House of Representatives debates bill.

Cars risk becoming the plaything of cyber criminals and the police. This is because the on-board computer systems are childishly easy to crack. The ANWB and several privacy organisations are very concerned about this.

Car and privacy organisations fear that agents could stop cars on the highway from a distance, posing dangers to other road users.

Today, the House of Representatives is discussing the bill Computer crime, which includes giving the police the ability to hack virtually any computer connected to the internet. The ANWB fears that hacking on-board computers will allow police to stop cars at a distance.

"This could be done, for example, as an alternative to creating a traffic jam trap," said ANWB director Frits van Bruggen. "The ANWB finds this very worrying from both a road safety and privacy protection perspective. In addition, wide accessibility of said systems encourages vehicle crime."

The Ministry of Security and Justice acknowledges that navigation systems and on-board computers can be hacked. (...) Although hacking cars sounds like science fiction to many, it is closer than ever, precisely because more and more sophisticated equipment is being placed in cars. "Technically, it is absolutely possible to stop a car via a hack," says privacy researcher Jaap-Henk Hoepman of Radboud University. "In America this has already happened recently."

According to experts like Wim van Campen, hacking cars is particularly easy because most car manufacturers pay little or no attention to the security of on-board systems. (...)

Privacy organisations Bits of Freedom and Privacy First are also vehemently opposed to the bill. According to the interest clubs, social necessity and proportionality are far from the case. "After all, the hacking power in the bill is not limited to devices of suspects, but also to connected devices of innocent, unsuspecting citizens. In the explanatory memorandum, the minister does not even rule out hacking pacemakers.""

Source: Telegraph 11 February 2016, Interior section, p. 10. Also available online, click HERE.