Hacker remotely disables 100 cars

A disgruntled former Texas Auto Center employee decided to get revenge on his ex-employer by disabling the cars of more than 100 people. He did so by hacking into and operating an remote system designed to warn car buyers that a payment on their automobile is due. Something I didn’t even know existed.

According to Wired, 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez used another employee’s password to get into the computer system used to operate Webtech Plus, which is a system operated by Pay Technologies. Car dealers install a black box under the dashboard of the car they are selling, which then responds to commands issued remotely via a wireless pager network. The car dealer can disable the car or trigger the horn to remind the car owner a payment is due.

Texas Auto Center investigated after more than 10 customers reported problems with their cars in one week. Ramos-Lopez was caught when police traced the access back to his IP address.

Manager Martin Garcia said:

It was a fairly straightforward situation. He had retained a password, and what happened was he went in and created a little bit of havoc.

He could have done a lot worse, I guess. It’s certainly not on a par with disgruntled postmen going on murder sprees.

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