General Motors Confident ‘OwnStar’ RemoteLink App Hack ‘Closed’
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Those worried about the recent hacking of the OnStar RemoteLink app should breathe a sigh of relief, as General Motors says that it has fully resolved the issue. Eloquently named OwnStar, the hack enabled Samy Kamkar to intercept signals between the user’s RemoteLink app and the OnStar system and unlock the vehicle’s doors, see its location on a map, and start the engine, though not put the vehicle in gear and drive away in it.
“We’re confident this issue is closed,” OnStar chief operating officer and executive director of GM’s Global Connected Customer organization told Wards Auto in an interview.
GM addressed the hack head-on, making changes to its back-office systems and updating the OnStar RemoteLink app to patch the security vulnerability while disabling previous versions of the app.
“We took the hacking problem incredibly seriously and GM is the only auto manufacturer to go as far as naming an executive director of cybersecurity”, said Inch, while also warning that this probably won’t be the last attempt to hack the OnStar system.
“We’re confident and believe we’ve done everything possible to resolve the issue, but problems like this are never entirely resolved and we can’t say that something like this will never happen again. We always will be looking to improve the system and always will be looking for ways to come up with a better mousetrap.
Inch says that GM is working inside and outside the company with government agencies and universities to find how and where the system can be hacked in the future and how to prevent that from happening.
For now, rest assured that OwnStar is no longer a thing. But truth be told, it never was since the hack was never released to the world, or in the wild, as the cool kids say.
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Seriously…can you at least spell “Onstar” correctly in the title of the article???
If you’re not joking, they’re referring to the ‘Ownstar’ hack.
It’s not a misspelling you moron. OwnStar is the name of the hack. Is also mentioned in the article, which shows you didn’t even read it.
And wait… are you an actual doctor, as your user name implies? If you are, I’m scared.
Hopefully it just means “Didn’t Read”
I get the feeling these hacks will be on going and will not be the last the industry see’s. As long as there is an opening to the outside world hackers will exploit these.
While this is not going to be an everyday thing more of this will be done now others know it can be done and what it could do.