Smart cars could be hijacked via AI hacking

Self-driving cars could be hijacked through outside forces able to change the Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that power the vehicles, new research has claimed. A report from McAfee says that a vehicle's AI system can be manipulated, possibly impacting the future and safety of autonomous vehicles. This process, which McAfee calls "model hacking", is able to completely override the software systems within vehicles that are available to buy today, including models from Tesla. McAfee's Advanced Threat Research (ATR) and Advanced Analytics Teams were able to use "minuscule modifications" to create a black-box targeted attack on the Mobileye EyeQ3 camera system found in many modern vehicles, including certain Tesla models. This attack allowed the researchers to cause a manipulate the AI technology within a Tesla model S implementing Hardware pack 1 to misclassify a speed limit sign that read 35, making it autonomously speed up to 85 mph.