UK Regulators Crack Down On Car Hacking

The U.K. government released new regulation guidelines on Sunday (August 6) that call on makers of internet-connected cars and trucks to place more stringent cybersecurity protections in the vehicles to prevent against hackers.

According to a news report in Reuters, the U.K. government is worried that smart vehicles could become targets for hackers as a way to get access to consumer’s personal data, steal vehicles that use keyless entries and take control of the technology inside the car for wrongdoing. The new measures are also aimed at getting engineers at auto companies to come up with ways to design the threat of hacking out of new cars and trucks.

“Whether we’re turning vehicles into wifi-connected hotspots or equipping them with millions of lines of code to become fully automated, it is important that they are protected against cyberattacks,” Martin Callanan, a minister in the Department for Transport, said in a statement to Reuters. “Our key principles give advice on what organizations should do, from the board level down, as well as technical design and development considerations.”

Under the new regulation guidelines, the auto companies would have to make the systems secure enough to withstand malicious data or commands from hackers and include the ability for consumers to delete the data that can personally identify them from the car’s computer systems. They must also develop plans to maintain and support hack-proof security over the whole life cycle of the vehicles. The government wants accountability of security to be the responsibility of the board.

The government also said it would bring forth new legislation focused on insurance for self-driving vehicles, reported Reuters. According to the newswire, legal battles between insurers and lawmakers has been hurting the adoption of self-driving cars in several countries because of disputes over who is accountable if the technology fails.

“Measures to be put before Parliament mean that insuring modern vehicles will provide protection for consumers if technologies fail,” the government said.