Are cars subject to the same cybersecurity risks as baby monitors?

Last week Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up. This happened as hackers unleashed a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack"  on the servers of Dyn a major DNS host. It’s probably safe to assume that the two situations are related. And it was determined that the culprit was witter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up this morning. T It’s probably safe to assume that the two situations are related.  It was determined that the outages were caused by security flaws in Internet of Things devices. Simple household devices like baby monitors, home routers, cameras, and printers that were connected to the internet.

A number of newer vehicles are also connected to the internet, just like the household devices.  So are cars at risk to the distributed denial of service attacks?  This week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released new guidance for how automakers should approach cybersecurity amid growing scrutiny prompted by high-profile vehicle hacks and the spread of car connectivity technologies.

>NHTSA says cybersecurity should be a top priority of automakers and suppliers that should be formally addressed during the product development process of new vehicles. The agency also says automakers and suppliers should conduct “penetration tests” to seek out potential vulnerabilities. Test results should be documented to describe how weak spots were addressed or the rationale for not addressing vulnerabilities found in testing.

In the constantly changing environment of technology and cybersecurity, no single or static approach is sufficient,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said in a statement. “Everyone involved must keep moving, adapting, and improving to stay ahead of the bad guys.