Researchers have taken car hacking one step further. We all know about the VW hack that has seen Jeep engines disabled at high speed, brakes seized, and locks popped.

Research trio András Szijj, and Levente Buttyán of CrySyS Lab together with Zsolt Szalay of Budapest University of Technology and Economics demonstrated that using a USB device on a compromised repair techs computer can disable the air bags. But that's not all.

The attack can allow intruders to conceal the disabling of airbags and other car functions from mechanics by falsifying read outs from the car.

Buttyán said: "... it works with other cars in the VW group too without any modification," Buttyán says.

"Anything that can be switched on or off from the diagnostic application could have been switched on or off.

"After switching off the airbag, we can consistently report to the application that it is still switched on."

Buttyán stresses that the flaw "has nothing to do with VW itself" and relates solely to third-party software.

Source: The Register