Kaspersky: Driverless cars a security time bomb

Security vendor calls on automotive and tech industries to work closer together

Kaspersky has called on the automotive and security industries to join forces to make driverless cars safer, claiming that at the moment it would take "just seconds" to destroy a connected vehicle.

Earlier today, the UK government gave firms the green light to test driverless vehicles on public roads. The government has already invested £19m in driverless car trials in Greenwich, Coventry and Milton Keynes as part of a project carried out with Oxford University and Nissan.

The government claims driverless cars offer "tremendous potential" for cutting the number of accidents and improving traffic.

But Kaspersky said making the vehicles safe should be the number-one priority.

"With the announcement of a new breed of driverless car being trialled on our roads as early as summer 2015, the automotive and security industries should be looking to join forces to protect our connected vehicles from emerging cyber threats, before the cars become widely available to consumers and the risk increases," said Vicente Diaz, principal security researcher at Kaspersky.

"The current mechanisms for real-time tracking, detection, analysis and resolution of cyber threats for computers and mobile devices will not be enough on their own - it could take just seconds to disable or destroy a connected vehicle, with disastrous consequences. Rather than waiting for the first attack to take place, we have to find and stop these vulnerabilities now before the technology is integrated extensively into our cars.

"Although these trial cars have been given the green light, it's likely to be a while before they become available to consumers, giving us time to prepare. Everyone involved in the creation of a connected vehicle - including policy makers - needs to work together to ensure these points of weakness are dealt with before connected vehicles become commonplace."