Two hackers remotely took control of a moving Jeep - before cutting out its engine on a busy highway as part of an experiment.
Chrysler has announced it is recalling a staggering 1.4 million vehicles, just days after a video surfaced showing hackers cutting out a car's engine as it drove on a highway.
The video shows the startling moment Andy Greenberg, a senior writer at Wired, allowed the hackers to take over a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee while he drove on a highway in St Louis.
The company added that it "applied network-level security measures to prevent the type of remote manipulation demonstrated in a recent media report".
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The recall affects vehicles with 8.4-inch touchscreens including: 2013 to 2015 Ram pickups and chassis cabs, Dodge Viper sports cars, 2014 and 2015 Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee and Cherokee SUVs, and the 2015 Chrysler 200 and 300, and the Dodge Charger and Challenger.
In the video, Charlie Miller, a security engineer at Twitter, and Chris Valasek, the director of vehicle safety research at IOActive, said they worked for a year to develop the software to takeover the digital systems in the vehicle.
They were able to control the temperature and the music inside the car, as well as its steering before ultimately cutting out its engine as Greenberg drove on a highway. They started the car up again after he begged for their help.
The duo said they carried out the experiment to show how some late model Chrysler vehicles could be exposed to this through an internet connected computer in the dashboard.
"We wanted to show that this attack has serious consequences for this vehicle," they told Wired. "That's why we're working is to make sure we figured out weaknesses, get them fixed," Miller explained.
Following the experiment, the hackers alerted Chrysler, which is offering a security update at no cost to customers.
The company released a statement, saying: "Similar to a smartphone or tablet, vehicle software can require updates for improved security protection to reduce the potential risk of unauthorized and unlawful access to vehicle systems.”
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