BMWs with the Connected Drive system are vulnerable to hacker attack

Hackers have found a way to use BMW's Connected Drive system to remotely unlock car doors, according to PCWorld. The website quotes Dave Buchko, a BMW spokesman, saying that the perpetrators were able to "reverse engineer some of the software that we use for our telematics . . . and they were able to mimic the BMW server." The glitch was first discovered by the German Automobile Association (ADAC).

The PCWorld article reports that BMW is beaming "software patches to the 2.2 million cars equipped with Connected Drive and said it hadn't come across any cases in which the vulnerability had been used to unlock or attempt to unlock its cars."

Buchko went on to say that U.S. customers will start getting the patch beginning from next week.

PCWorld says that the fix "adds HTTPS encryption to the connection from BMW to the car, which runs over the public cellular network. The added encryption will not only safeguard the content of the messages but also ensures that the car only accepts connections from a server with the correct security certificate."

This issue brings to light the possible downside of remote locking/unlocking services from various manufacturers: vulnerability to creative hackers to get in your car.

The BMW breach comes on the heels of the massive data breach that hit health insurance company Anthem. 

—Mike Quincy