How your car might be protected from hackers in the future
Two senators are trying to defend your future cars from hacks.
Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal (of Massachusetts and Connecticut, respectively) recently reintroduced the SPY Car Act, which aims to protect the control of your vehicle as well as any data a hacker might find there.
The bill's authors hope to separate "critical software systems" from noncritical ones, so an infection of the noncritical parts wouldn't necessarily lead to an infection of the systems that control the vehicle.
Were it to become law, the Federal Trade Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would be tasked with making sure vehicles could detect any kind of hack and follow that detection by stopping it before the car is being controlled remotely.
An infrastructure that would be able to stop hacks would also protect any personal data available to a hacker through the car's software.
If car manufacturers decided to ignore the would-be law, they'd be fined up to $5,000 per vehicle, though the act likely wouldn't be implemented for a few years after it passed.
Your car might also look a bit different if you buy it a few years after the law is passed (assuming it gets that far). A couple years after the regulations are finalized, the law requires vehicles to come with a "cyber dashboard" that lets drivers know "about the extent to which the motor vehicle protects the cybersecurity and privacy of motor vehicle owners."
In other words, there may be a few new questions on future driver's license tests.
Topics Cybersecurity Cars Senate
Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
