by Pete Bigelow of www.autoblog.com
Congress wants to know more about how federal regulators and major car manufacturers plan to protect drivers from automotive cyber attacks.
Lawmakers from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote letters to 17 automakers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday, asking each about their readiness to thwart car hackers.
"The explosion of new, connected devices and services is exacerbating existing cyber-security challenges and has introduced another potential consequence – the threat of physical harm," the committee wrote.
After a slow start, auto industry executives have taken steps in recent years to secure vulnerable parts of their vehicles. But as the number of connected cars on the road mushrooms and development of vehicle-to-infrastructure communication progresses, threats are multiplying as quickly as automakers can address concerns.
Written questions from the subcommittee members hint at the scope of the challenge. Vulnerabilities exist in the smartphones drivers bring into cars, in third-party diagnostic devices plugged into OBD-II ports, in the automotive supply chain, in over-the-air software updates, and elsewhere. Lawmakers seems to acknowledge the enormity of the potential pitfalls, writing to NHTSA that, "threats and vulnerabilities in vehicle systems may be inevitable." But the committee wants to know how industry leaders and regulators intend to keep pace with the concerns.
This isn't the first Congressional foray into the automotive cyber-security realm. US Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) proposed legislation in February that would compel automakers to fix security holes and strengthen privacy protection for driving data.
In the House, cyber security and privacy concerns have piqued the interest of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which held hearing on the impact of the Internet of Things on the health-care industry several weeks ago. With an influx of connected systems in vehicles making news and privacy concerns surfacing, leaders say there is bipartisan interest in automotive cyber security.
For the rest of the article;
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/05/29/car-hacking-threats-congressional-scrutiny/
No comments:
Post a Comment