Subaru Security Flaws Exposed Its System for Tracking Millions of Cars
1 min read
Summary
Security researchers who bought their mother a Subaru to hack have found they can track the car’s movements for the entire period the car has been in operation, thereby discovering where the owner has visited, including medical centres, friends’ homes and which parking spaces they use regularly.
Sam Curry and Shubham Shah reported the security vulnerabilities to Subaru last November before the carmaker patched the flaws.
They insist, however, that similar web-based vulnerabilities affecting at least a dozen other carmakers are likely to be in operation.
Curry said the ability to access a year’s location history for any car could be repurposed for numerous nefarious means, such as finding out if a person was cheating on their partner or had terminated a pregnancy.
The car industry more widely was also called out for its lack of privacy safeguards, with 92% of cars giving owners no control over the data they collect, and 84% reserving the right to sell on information.