WATCH: Researchers Hack A Car's Brakes With a Text

As cars are becoming more technologically advanced, they’re also becoming more vulnerable.

Less than a month after Chrysler-Dodge recalled 1.4 million vehicles over a steering wheel hack, researchers at the University of San Diego are showcasing another hack that can take over a car’s brake system.

And they’re doing it with just a text message.

The researchers say they can hack into “any of thousands of vehicles,” as long as they are equipped with a small device used by insurance companies and trucking fleets to measure a car’s activity like speed and location, according to Wired.com.

By sending “carefully crafted” texts to the device, they gained access to the car’s internal control system and were able to run its windshield wipers and, more alarmingly, apply and disable the brakes.

“We acquired some of these things, reverse engineered them, and along the way found that they had a whole bunch of security deficiencies,” Stefan Savage, the University of California at San Diego computer security professor who led the project, told Wired.

The devices, he said, “provide multiple ways to remotely…control just about anything on the vehicle they were connected to.”

Because of the way the computer system is set up, the brake hack only works at low speeds. But with a few adjustments, they could access other parts of the car like its transmission, locks or steering.

According to Wired, the hackable device is a “OBD2 dongle built by the France-based firm Mobile Devices, but distributed by corporate customers like the San Francisco-based insurance startup Metromile.”

Metromile brands the device as Metromile Pulse when installed in their cars. The company uses it to track miles driven by its customers and charges their insurance based on the number of mile they drive.

Check out video of the hack in action below:

Read the full Wired article here.

Image via YouTube