Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Chrysler Over Jeep Remote Hack

Some of you might recall that last month, hackers demonstrated how a Jeep Cherokee by Chrysler could be hacked, thus allowing the hackers to remotely commandeer the vehicle, which safe to say is quite a nightmare situation not only for the carmaker, but for owners of the vehicle who are suddenly made aware of their situation.

However the company has since released a software patch meant to fix the issue, so as far as everyone is concerned, the matter is now behind us, or at least that’s what we thought. It turns out despite the patch, some customers aren’t too happy about the hack in the first place and have since filed a class-action lawsuit against Chrysler.

According to the lawsuit, it alleges that Chrysler was well-aware of the vehicle’s security flaws but did nothing about it. To a certain extent they are right as the hackers behind the hack, Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller actually warned last year at the Black Hat 2014 conference that there were software vulnerabilities in the cars that could be exploited.

The complaint also suggests that the uConnect system should be segregated from the vehicle’s critical systems, and it is these fundamental architectural vulnerabilities that are the cause for concern, even though the patch and the recalls were supposedly designed to address them. Chrysler has yet to respond to the complaint.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Transportation
Tags: chrysler, Hacking, Legal, Security