The owner of a Tesla vehicle unlocked with the application and drove a car that was not his for a quarter of an hour. The man, named Rajesh Randev, explains that the company’s app, which allows you to unlock the car without using the physical remote, gave him access to someone else’s Model 3.
According to The Washington Post, Randev went to pick up his children at school where he believed it was his white Model 3. After fifteen minutes of driving on the roads of Vancouver (Canada), he realized that there were things in the car that were unknown to him.
Suddenly a crack in the windshield and the absence of a phone charger warned him that it was not his vehicle. The man claims the app allowed him access to someone else’s car, who was able to unlock Randev’s car using his Tesla card, the outlet claims.
Both owners were able to get in touch and return their respective cars thanks to the phone number that one of them found inside the car. Randev was able to drive the vehicle for about 90 minutes without any problem, which has raised some questions about the company’s supposed safety.
This strange incident happened at the beginning of October and for the moment Tesla has not wanted to make any statements about it. It should be noted that the technological functions of these electric vehicles, such as touch screens and the option to access with the application as a key, are the main selling points of the brand.
Anyway, they can also be your weak points. And it is that on previous occasions the copies manufactured by Elon Musk’s firm have been hacked. Less than a year ago, a cybersecurity expert from NCC Group questioned the ‘keyless’ system they use.
The specialist managed to open a Tesla Model 3 and start it by hacking the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) transmission that is established between the car and the mobile. It is the well-known ‘keyless’ system (without a key) that functions as a smart key. The investigator explained that he managed to open and close the doors and windows and start the vehicle remotely by intercepting the frequency of the remote control. To do this, he used a tool created for the occasion that costs less than 50 euros.
The NCC Group investigation came after a 19-year-old, David Colombo, claimed he had remotely hacked more than 25 Tesla cars in 13 different countries. The young man posted on Twitter that a bug in the software allowed him to access a way to hack some functions of Tesla cars, such as those in charge of opening and closing their doors or controlling the volume of their music.
