Modern automobiles are increasing run by computers, which are easily hacked.
Credit: www.dailytech.com

A 14-year-old boy may have forever changed the way the auto industry views cyber security.

He was part of a group of high-school and college students that joined professional engineers, policy-makers and white-hat security experts for a five-day camp last July that addressed car-hacking threats.

“This kid was 14, and he looked like he was 10,” said Dr. Andrew Brown Jr., vice president and chief technologist at Delphi Automotive.

With some help from the assembled experts, he was supposed to attempt a remote infiltration of a car, a process that some of the nation’s top security experts say can take weeks or months of intricate planning. The student, though, eschewed any guidance. One night, he went to Radio Shack, spent $15 on parts and stayed up late into the night building his own circuit board.

The next morning, he used his homemade device to hack into the car of a major automaker.Camp leaders […]