Vehicle hacking already has a 15-year pedigree. Though there are at least 36 million vehicles on the road today already connected to the internet, manufacturers appear to have learned little from the biggest security crises of the internet era. Cybersecurity is, yet again, a bolted-on afterthought rather than an integral part of the engineering of an interconnected vehicle.
Hackers started around 2002 by targeting engine-management technologies that control performance superchargers and fuel injectors. In 2005, Trifinite demonstrated using Bluetooth to surreptitiously intercept or transmit in-car audio signals. In 2007, UK firm Inverse Path showed how hackers could compromise the integrity of in-car navigation systems by sending fake traffic updates over FM, causing cars to reroute.