On September 17, the personal pagers of thousands of Hezbollah members burstThe incident, which left at least 4,000 people injured and 12 people dead, including an eight-year-old boy, has once again highlighted how dangerous remote interference with electronic devices can be.
What dangers do such events indicate? Could the smartphones, electronic gadgets or remote-controlled electric cars that all citizens use today be beyond our control and threaten our lives as a result of a cyberattack? These questions have become a topic of serious discussion on social media.
Oku.Az expert, recognized automotive expert and design engineer to clarify any doubts that may arise Elchin Abbasovstudied the opinions of
The expert explained how both smartphones and remote-controlled electric cars can be subject to a cyber attack:
“New systems installed in cars, such as automatic parking or improved autonomous driving systems, require the car to drive itself completely electronically.
A second issue is the availability of remote diagnostics for vehicles. Obviously, if remote diagnostic capabilities exist, the control functions of the devices in the car remain and these functions are vulnerable to cyber attacks.
About nine years ago there was such an experiment: a journalist talks to a hacker and both get into a JEEP vehicle. The journalist asks the hacker if it is possible to take control of the car via an app while driving. In the end, the hacker takes control from the journalist’s hands on the steering wheel and the car goes in the direction the hacker wants, not the driver.
Pager explosions spark fear: Are smartphones and electric cars becoming weapons?
This was nine years ago. We all know how much technology has advanced over the years.
In other words, it is possible to interfere with a car or a smartphone through a cyber attack, and there may be such cases.
The level of protection of these systems is questionable. If we take into account that nowadays hackers can take over the protection systems of banks, then it is not difficult to do such things in remote-controlled cars.
The increasing prevalence of Chinese cars and their autonomous systems and the emergence of remote smartphone control systems give more reasons to think about the issue of cyberattacks.
“As they are not yet established companies, they do not have much experience in the field of fighting hackers or in the automotive sector. I think that in this type of cars this area is weaker,” says E. Abbasov.
Is it possible to cause lithium batteries to explode with a cyber attack?
“Yes, it is possible. This is how the process occurs: lithium batteries short-circuit, in which case a lot of current flows through them, they heat up and explode.
How can this be simulated remotely? The car engine is driven by an inverter, and the inverter has a processor that receives commands from the car’s main computer.
This computer can receive control from the car manufacturer’s server, via the Internet. It is true that this connection between the manufacturer and the car is protected by special means, but hackers can create this protection.
To improve the autonomous driving system in modern cars, all control of the car has been handed over to electronics.
This means that hackers can remotely control any device in the car to record where we are, how fast we are moving, complete video sequences and even our conversation in the cabin.
Electric and hybrid cars have a BMS system, i.e. a battery management system. Hackers can also use it to cause explosions and overheating of the battery. But these are all theoretical things. It is true that cars are equipped with something to prevent them, but in any case, such dangerous moments can be unavoidable.
The method I mentioned is valid for smartphones, gadgets and in general any system with lithium batteries.
“As I mentioned earlier, a transistor is placed inside it, which short-circuits the battery on command, so that when necessary, it will short-circuit it as soon as the command is given. As soon as the command comes, a short circuit occurs, the current increases, and as soon as the current increases, the battery cannot withstand it, it swells and explodes,” said E. Abbasov.
Aziza Ismayilova
