The UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has responded by saying that car companies “invest billions of pounds to keep vehicles secure as possible”.

NCC demonstrated its technique to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme at its offices in Cheltenham.Car Breaks Can be Hacked Via Radio

By using relatively cheap off-the-shelf components connected to a laptop, the company’s research director, Andy Davis, created a DAB station.

Because infotainment systems processed DAB data to display text and pictures on car dashboard screens, he said, an attacker could send code that would let them take over the system.

Once an infotainment system had been compromised, he said, an attacker could use it as a way to control more critical systems, including steering and braking.

Depending on the power of the transmitter, he said, a DAB broadcast could allow attackers to affect many cars at once.

“As this is a broadcast medium, if you had a vulnerability within a certain infotainment system in a certain manufacturer’s vehicle, by sending one stream of data, you could attack many cars simultaneously,” he said.

“[An attacker] would probably choose a common radio station to broadcast over the top of to make sure they reached the maximum number of target vehicles.”

Mr Davis declined to publicly identify which specific infotainment systems he had hacked, at this point.

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