Thomas Brewster over at Forbes has an interesting story this week on a $10,000 bounty that’s being offered for anyone who can hack Tesla’s Model S sedan. The contest is open to all registered attendees of SyScan Conference in Beijing, which takes place later in July. (Conference web site is here.) According to Brewster, the contest is not endorsed by Tesla, nor is the company cooperating in any way. The conference features a number of hacking demonstrations, including at least one on hacking cars: this presentation on strategies for securing Controller Area Network (CAN) based systems – CAN is the most commonly used networking protocol in automobiles. Tesla – which makes the most wired cars on the road – have flirted with both hackers and mod-ers in the past. Notably: this article mentions one car owner’s hack of Tesla’s (really nice) on board touch screen interface. That prompted a warning from […]
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Survey: Consumers Growing Wary of Information Sharing
A survey by the business information service Lexis Nexis finds that consumers have grown more wary of programs that ask them to share data in exchange for improved services or other offerings. Editor’s note: LexisNexis has clarified that its survey was released in August, 2013, not October, 2013. The story has been corrected to reflect that information. – Paul 6/4/2014 The survey of 2,072 consumers, aged 21 to 74, was conducted in October 2013 by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. It found consumers were more wary of sharing information online, including at social networking and online banking sites than they were three years earlier. “Consumers are less comfortable with information sharing than three years ago,” the survey concluded. The survey was released in concert with Telematics Detroit 2014, a conference focused on information systems used in vehicles. It was designed to measure consumers’ awareness of- and interest in so-called “use based insurance” (or UBI) – sometimes referred […]
Car Makers, Suppliers Going Their Own Way On Security
I was surprised to see a big feature story over at CNN.com this morning – given that the security of connected vehicles has no obvious link to LA Clippers owner Don Sterling, the on-going shakeup at the Veterans Administration or a tornado or other natural disaster. Still – there it is: “Your car is a giant computer – and it can be hacked.” The feature, by Jose Pagliery is solid enough – though it doesn’t break much new ground. He mentions the research by Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller at The Black Hat Briefings last year. He also talks to the folks over at Security Innovation. [Want more on security and connected vehicles? Check out our video: Insecure At Any Speed: Are Automakers Failing The Software Crash Test? ] The big take-away: automobiles are rife with old and outdated software and hardware, much of it lacking even basic security features like secure communications […]
No Silver Bullet For Securing The Internet Of Things
On Wednesday we wrapped up the first-ever Security of Things Forum (SECoT) here in Boston, which was a great success. During a full day of talks and panel discussions, there was a lot of discussion – both on the stage and in the audience. Here are some (high level) take aways from the event: The Internet of Things will be different – really different The combination of technologies that we refer to as the Internet of Things is going to be transformative in ways that are profound. As I said in introductory comments: I see the net effect of this next phase of the Internet as being a leap forward, rather than incremental change – less “invention of the printing press” and more “invention of writing and counting systems.” Like Internet v.1, the exact direction that the Internet of Things will take is unclear. What is clear is that it […]
IoT And Big Data To Create Insurance Industry Winners, Losers
This blog writes a lot about risk and the Internet of Things. Specifically: we talk about how smart, sensor rich, connected devices create all kinds of new risks for enterprises and consumers. It goes without saying that feature development (and adoption) are running well ahead of pesky issues like secure design and deployment or data privacy. Smart companies are trying to put some brakes on that trend. (Witness Google prohibiting sensitive health data from its Android Wear platform.) But, by and large, companies are plowing ahead into IoT technologies without a lot of consideration of the risks. But there’s one industry where risk _is_ the business: the insurance industry. And there, the thinking about the potential of Internet of Things is decidedly bullish. In fact, a recent report from the financial services research firm Celent (paywall) suggests that broad adoption of IoT technologies will revolutionize the way insurance companies market and sell to […]
