Tesla To Pay Hackers To Break Into Their Model S

Tesla Motors indicated at a conference last month that they would like to pay hackers to try to break into their vehicles, full-time. The annual “DEFCON” Hacker Conference in Las Vegas last month hosted around 10,000 coders and computer security professionals. Reports indicate that there was some success by the friendly conference hackers. Hackers attending the conference broke into the Model S and manipulated the sunroof, horn and lights.

Nitesh Dhanjani released an internet posting about some of the potential vulnerabilities of Tesla’s current security protocol. Among other issues, the Tesla account password was deemed to be too weak. With just 6 characters and one number or letter, plus no maximum number of login attempts, the Tesla login system is susceptible to hacking by way of “brute force methods,” which means trying different passwords an infinite number of times.

Phishing and malware attacks were also listed as potentially problems with the current Tesla security setup. However, Dhanjani’s report hit on a concern that could be worrisome, as vehicles get more and more technologically advanced: remote unlocking. Reports indicate that some Tesla employees are able to remotely unlock Tesla vehicles. This could lead owners to want to know what kind of background investigation is going into hiring individuals with the capability to unlock a vehicle that some owners pay upper five or low six figures for.

Tesla, surely knowing this and more of the potential problems with the security of their vehicles, is taking a two-pronged approach to improvement. On the one side, they are hiring big-name security experts such as Kristin Paget, former “Hacker Princess,” from Apple. Tesla is also seeking a reported 30 full-time salaried hackers and hacker interns to help them make their vehicles safer long term by constantly hacking into them. If anyone working on security project finds a fault, Tesla puts the security researcher’s name on the “Tesla Security Researcher Hall of Fame,” listing on the Tesla Motors homepage. Nineteen names made the list in 2013, with just two thus far in 2014.

One thing that Tesla is doing well is preparation for the future. As the Elon Musk founded company hires more security professionals and hackers-for-hire, they may be building up the strongest vehicle security team in the industry. The end result of this effort could be a Tesla vehicle of the future that will be much more protected against potential hacking than other vehicles on the road.