SAN DIEGO, May 14 (UPI) -- Increasingly sophisticated cars need to be protected from hackers who could tamper with computerized systems, U.S. scientists said.
As more cars become connected to the Internet through wireless systems, hackers could remotely sabotage the vehicles, The New York Times reported Friday.
In tests, computer security experts at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, said they were able to remotely control braking, stop the engine and activate dozens of other functions, almost all of them while a car was in motion.
The researchers tested two versions of a late-model car in laboratory and field settings. The researchers did not publicly identify the manufacturer or model, but said they believed the cars were representative of the computer network systems found in many late-model cars today.
"You should expect that various entry points in the automotive environment are no more secure in the automotive environment than they are in your PC," said Stefan Savage, a computer scientist in San Diego.
