DETROIT (AP) – The company that makes car radios that friendly hackers exploited to take control of a Jeep Cherokee says its other infotainment systems don’t have the same security flaw.
Harman International CEO Dinesh Paliwal said Tuesday that the hackers used a cellular connection to get to the radio, which they used to control critical functions such as brakes and steering.
The hack by Twitter security expert Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, who heads auto security for a consulting firm, touched off the recall of 1.4 million vehicles from Fiat Chrysler to patch software holes. On Saturday, the government announced that it would investigate the Harman Kardon radios to see which other manufacturers use them and whether they had the same vulnerabilities.
The hackers, who informed Fiat Chrysler of their findings, were able to control the Jeep remotely with a laptop computer, sending the auto industry scrambling to make sure its systems are secure. They were to release specifics about their attack at a hackers’ conference in Las Vegas this week.
But Paliwal said the radio system that was hacked, with an 8.4-inch touch screen, was developed about five years ago and doesn’t have as many security safeguards as current models. “We believe based on our assessment with all other customers we supply our system to that the Chrysler system is the only one exposed to this particular experimental hack,” Paliwal said on the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings conference call. “So it’s a unique situation.”