Outbreak of car thieves exploiting keyless entry spreads across London

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London has fallen victim to a new wave of tech-savvy criminals that have been breaking into cars through their keyless entry features.

To paint a picture of how commonplace this is, the Metropolitan Police Office reports that more than 6,000 cars and vans across the UK’s capital were stolen without the owners’ keys, which is an average of 17 vehicles each day. These figures represent 42% of all car and van thefts.

Thieves are said to be using a device that can...

By Simon Holland, 04 February 2015, 0 comments. Categories: Connectivity, Data & Analytics, Devices, Privacy, Security.

BMW moves quickly to solve security hole

A flaw discovered by Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club e.V. (ADAC) in BMW’s ConnectedDrive system has now been solved by the manufacturer.

More than 2.2 million vehicles were said to be affected by the vulnerability to ConnectedDrive, BMW’s in-car operating system. ADAC reported that a mobile was all that was required to access the platform.

By spoofing a phone network ADAC was able to break into ConnectedDrive. From here it was possible to control heating, ventilating, and air conditioning,...

By Simon Holland, 02 February 2015, 0 comments. Categories: Connectivity, Privacy, Security, Standards.

A look into the future: Secure connected cars

Picture credit: Denis Bocquet

The number of people living in cities is expected to double by 2050, meaning congestion and pollution will increasingly be a problem for city dwellers. As a result the cities of the future will demand smarter traffic management solutions and more intelligent vehicles.

Experts say that the car industry will develop more in the next decade than it has in the last fifty years due to the rise in connectivity and mobile technology. The industry is gearing itself up for the age of the...

Consumer worries about insurance telematics privacy on a par with social media

Insurance telematics concerns could simply be sensationalised hyperbole if new research by LexisNexis rings true for the wider population.

The company’s 2014 Usage-Based Insurance (UBI) white paper revealed how consumers’ comfort levels surrounding the sharing of UBI driving data were on a similar level to other internet-related tasks such as online banking and social media.

In fact, both online search data and social media personal rated higher on the study’s concern scale than UBI driving...

By Simon Holland, 28 November 2014, 0 comments. Categories: Contextual data, Data & Analytics, Insurance, Privacy, Security, Telematics .

EFF proposals could hinder telematics insurance companies in US

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Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation has moved to dismantle copyright legislation that prevents car owners from tinkering with their own vehicle's software programming.

The USA’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a series of copyright laws that aims to protect the rights of both copyright owners and consumers, restricts access to a car’s electronic control unit (ECU) on the grounds of vehicle safety.

A host of requests have been filed with the...

Microsoft and Nissan outsource “the car of the future”

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Nissan has partnered with Microsoft to launch a competition that the two companies hope will find in-car technology’s next big thing.

Aimed at product designers and engineers from various backgrounds, it is hoped that everybody from students to IT professionals will want to submit a technology idea for the the two company’s connected car competition.

Microsoft and Nissan hope to entice entrants with the...

By Simon Holland, 07 November 2014, 1 comment. Categories: Microsoft, Security.