Chinese engineers hack Tesla Model S

Article By : Vivek Nanda

Chinese white hat hackers broke into the Model S and played around with the control system.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for Tesla (PR wise), white hat hackers at Chinese company Keen Security Lab, part of Tencent Holdings, broke into the Model S control system and played around with turn signals, the brakes, seat position and the door lock.

Posting on their company's blog, the hackers said they had discovered multiple security vulnerabilities and successfully implemented remote control on Tesla Model S in both Parking and Driving modes. They then reported the technical details of all the vulnerabilities discovered to Tesla.

Tesla released a patch and they told The Verge that it took them 10 days to fully deploy the update.

Keen and Tesla have congratulated each other through blog and press announcements on the discovery of the software flaw and it's early and proactive resolution, respectively.

This comes at a time when the U.S. lawmakers are waking up to potential regulatory responsibilities towards autonomous cars and debating whether to require self-disclosures and policing—kind of like the cosmetics industry—or require approvals like those from their aviation agency, the FAA.

In the meantime, Uber is testing autonomous Ford Fusion in Pittsburgh and a company called Nutonomy has been trialling its self-driving taxis in One-North, Singapore since August 25.