[scalaris373]

So, vehicles can be sabotaged by plugging physical devices into them.. So what?

Once you have physical access to the internals of a vehicle, there's a myriad of ways to cause havoc, and this has been the case since ever.

"attackers will find vulnerabilities offering over-the-Internet access to vehicles’ vulnerable digital innards". I have yet to see a viable attack which seriously compromises a commercial vehicle's safety without the attacker needing physical access first.

In the Jeep case, the researchers simply reprogrammed the onboard electronics to connect to their server and not the official one, as well as to send commands it was never intended to send (like turn-of-the-brakes and so), but unless this can be done remotely, it's just another case of sabotaging a car by getting under the hood, which again is nothing new.

In my opinion, I see lots of journalists calling for histeria, and little real reasons to worry about this.