Stolen Jeeps in Texas; Hackers are to Blame
You might remember the hacker duo that took control of a Jeep Cherokee last year: without physically touching the vehicle, they used a computer and internet connection to deactivate the steering, brakes and accelerator of the SUV. The stunt placed the Uconnect system in a bad light, since this infotainment system was to be blamed for letting giving access to the vehicle's electronic management system.
Recently, a couple of thieves was arrested in Houston, Texas. They had stolen around 30 vehicles, all of them FCA products. To take the vehicles—Jeeps, mostly—they didn’t need lockpicks, but simply a laptop and some software.
After their arrest, they confessed that the stolen vehicles were sent to Mexico.
Homeland Security has opened an investigation on about a hundred FCA vehicles that were stolen in the past year. The manufacturer has also started investigating, but they already stated that the previously-known Uconnect software’s weakness wasn’t exploited to steal cars; this is an entirely new problem.