A competition in China had teams of hackers competing for a $10,000 prize. All they had to do was hack into the Tesla Model S.

Well, the competition is over and the results are comforting for Tesla owners, but not that exciting. One team was able to hack into the Tesla Model S, but all that they could control was the car's lights, horn and sunroof.

Since the competition, Tesla has asked the semi-successful team to share with them the method they used to hack the Tesla Model S to increase this one little security flaw.

It is worth noting that the competition was not sanctioned or organized by Tesla.

This is good news. I wouldn't want people to be able to hack even the lights, sunroof, and horn, but that is pretty minimal as far as risk goes.

Is anyone scared of hacking as cars become more and more like computers?

This is a great challenge to do, one I doubt GM would ever allow to happen.

I have serious doubts about the veracity of this "contest"

The Tesla Command app for Android allows control of the exact same fucntions from your android phone or smart watch, yet these are the exact same functions the hackers accessed. I'm inclined to think we're not being told the whole story.

The hackers went for low hanging fruit it seems.


There was a guy on Tesla forums a few months back who got so deep into the system that Tesla phoned him up and said "oy stop fiddling about in there". If Bitcoin's (ok My.Goxs) complex encryptions can be cracked what makes a Tesla so special?

Well I'm sure they sought higher goals but this was as far as they could get. Likely because you can hack the app which gives you access to the car.

Oh and the OP is misleading, these were students not crack team of espionage hackers/anonymous type levels of malice. Yes the app is easier to hack into, which doesn't change my innitial statement that they went for low hanging fruit.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showt...hernet-network

This is the guy I was talking about.

i heard any system no matter how secure it's said to be, can be hacked. it might come down to just a matter of time before someone does hack into it.

Tesla sent its head of vehicle security, Kristin Paget, to the perrminent security conference in the US, Def Con. She was there to recruit some hackers to help Tesla make its vehicles secure, digitally speaking.

Tesla also has a program that rewards people who inform them of vulnerabilities. So far 20 have been reported, and those 20 people have had their name put onto a Hall of Fame list and also got a "challenge coin" that can be turned in for a factory tour.

Sounds like cyber security is a growing concern for automakers.