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Originally Posted by vertigto
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I won't go into too much detail, but I spent the last decade of my life working for the government dealing with offensive and defensive cyber. Your concerns are warranted.
These problems though correspond across the board between all vehicles... regardless of being EV. It's the inclusion of wireless technology that we've introduced into vehicles that permits this.
Cars as early as the late 90s were "hackable" with the inclusion of things like OnStar, SOS, and anything that makes a "wireless" connection to the CAN bus... basically the BCM, which is connected to the ECM via a CAN bus network.
Even things like you'd least expect, such as the Tire Pressure Monitoring System, can allow an attacker to hack into your car and affect the systems.
The earliest "hack" was manipulating wireless key fobs. They used to be serialized (like the old garage doors), and then it became a rotating key, etc. But because these fobs are omni-directional, there are capture devices that allow you to capture the rolling key, and since it's a known standard, it can decode the encryption on even the newest models, and replicate the next code in the sequence. You can then in turn (within minutes) program a new FOB that you can use to unlock any car. These are devices you can literally buy online.... for like $40 bucks from AliExpress.
It gets worse... there's a device I have called the UberTooth One. I think I paid $39 for it? It's easily available, and you can use it to hack into the Bluetooth feature of your car's hands-free phone device. Early BlueTooth devices... like BT version 1 and even 2, use default passcodes of 0000 or 1234 (seriously), and these don't get changed. So this is insanely easy. But even BT 3 and now even 4, can be hacked with the Ubertooth One. If I was standing at the street corner, and you were stopped at the light, I could pair with your car if you have Bluetooth enabled, and then begin talking with you through your car's speakers. With things like Kali Linux (using specific modules from Metasploit), you could then exploit certain features of the CAN bus that would allow you access into other areas of the car.
Another concern are the minivans and other devices that have a built in "hot spot" ... basically an access point. In most cases, these cars also use this built in hot spot to perform firmware updates for everything from the radio to the ECM. So it's always on when the car is on. This is why if you've ever had a wireless scanner open as you're driving around, and you'll see Wifi hotspots coming from cars. These are so easy to hack it's not even funny. There are free programs like Kismet from Kali Linux that you could use to hack into a wireless router built into one of these Chrysler vans, and then you can get access to the router which you can then easily exploit and reveal the rest of the network which has the BCM and such.
I'm just speaking specifically about normal cars from the past 10-years. So there's probably more you can do with EVs.
Look... just saying... if the s**t hits the fan one day... I have a 1973 VW Bus with an air-cooled motor, mechanical advance distributor, and a mechanical fuel pump. There's nothing to hack on it... but God forbid I need to run from a group of zombies... I'll probably die trying to outrun them in my bus!!! haha...
EDIT: as far as EV's taking over... I'm not sure they'll take "over..." I think there's still too much reliance on the rare Earth elements that are needed for production, and I think we've gone too far too quickly, to the point that we'll likely see the pendulum swing the other way. I would like to see low-e renewables compliment the energy sector for combustion engines. I think better / more modern engines complimented with offerings of EVs is probably going to be what we end up with in 20 years when the dust settles. But all of that said... it's an eye-opener when a 4-door Tesla sedan with Plaid seats can easily overtake a race-prepped Z06 mid-engine Corvette... which is the pinnacle of Corvette development. I don't really know how I feel about this, because the nostalgia for me is the rumble of a big engine, but at the same time, I recognize how impressive these electric motors are. What I would like to see... are more EV kits being offered that allow us to upgrade a lot of these older cars with EV power. Battery technology will likely be the game-changer on deciding how things go. If we can half the size of the battery while doubling the charge capacity... then EVs will 100% be where everything goes. But as of right now... the infrastructure still doesn't exist to really make an electric vehicle feasible for anything other than city driving and getting back and forth to work every day.