Got a new-ish car? Be concerned..

White hat hackers working for a cyber security firm based in the U.S. found a vulnerability in cars made by Fiat-Chrysler that allows them to hack into most of the car’s systems, including Steering and engine control and tamper with them. Even during driving.

This affects cars made by Fiat-Chrysler since late 2013, and has been reported to the manufacturer in order to have the vulnerability corrected.

This amounts to almost half a million (around 470,000) cars. And this is not the first time cars were hacked. Other car models show similar vulnerabilities related to their network connected systems. Here is a chart published last year:

This shows that modern cars are quite susceptible to remote hacking and that may prove to be a growing issue in the coming years. How are we going to deal with this threat? Modern cars are a hybrid of electronics and mechanics, fusing old technology with this new network connected world. Electronics are much more fragile than nuts and bolts. And the bad guys are getting more sophisticated than ever before.