Totaled Teslas Retain Video Recordings That Are Unencrypted

The infotainment systems in our cars have become a lot smarter over the years. It’s usual for them to retain some information from the smartphones that are paired with the Bluetooth system but it seems like Teslas can do more than that. Tesla’s vehicles have a significantly more powerful in-car infotainment system and all vehicles have built-in dashcams. The video can be used to review the events leading up to a crash. It seems that totaled Tesla vehicles hold on to those videos with no encryption.

A couple of white hat hackers took a closer look at what Tesla’s onboard computers can reveal. They found encrypted information from at least 17 different devices which included the number of times they were paired with the car and contact information from 11 phonebooks. Calendar entries with planned appointments and email address of those invited were also revealed.

The white hat hackers had purchased a totaled Model 3 for this purpose. Their research also revealed that it was possible to even see the 73 last locations with navigation information of where the car had been. They were able to extract a video of the crash that the vehicle was involved in as well.

Such videos will obviously be very helpful for investigators looking into the cause of a crash. However, it leaves the door open for people with technical knowledge to simply extract someone else’s information from a salvaged Tesla.

A spokesperson for Tesla told CNBC that “Tesla already offers options that customers can use to protect personal data stored on their car, including a factory reset option for deleting personal data and restoring customized settings to factory defaults, and a Valet Mode for hiding personal data (among other functions) when giving their keys to a valet. That said, we are always committed to finding and improving upon the right balance between technical vehicle needs and the privacy of our customers.”

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Transportation
Tags: Tesla