How secure are apps?

While apps provide a brilliant opportunity for improved smartphone integration within a car, they come with their dangers, too.

In the same way that hackers can infiltrate your desktop pc, there’s a chance cyber hackers could do the same to your car via your smartphone.

Wil Rockall director of cyber security at KPMG told us:

“You can really see the advantages of drivers using apps in their company cars, and we know that Apple and Android are working towards closer integration of function such as navigation systems.

“And if your business has a pool car that is used by several drivers then you can see the benefit of having their own GPS settings the moment they get into the car.

Word of warning

“But while apps are hugely useful, we want to add a note of warning. As car manufacturers turn increasingly to becoming technology companies with greater levels of IT integration in the car as we head towards autonomous driving, the issue becomes how they separate functionality from infotainment systems.

“We’ve had proof of concept where the infotainment system has been hijacked – broken into – to get into the control system and ‘drive’ the car with laptop.

“It’s not a problem at the moment but as an industry, SME fleet managers must start asking the manufacturers if what they are buying is secure.

“They are in a great position to protect drivers in the future – and we’ve seen their influence by demanding greater and greater levels of safety on vehicles.

Collaboration is key – not secrecy

“We can see that car manufacturers are working on improved security but the nature of car development is highly secretive –  for good reason. Manufacturers are always trying to establish an advantage with better performance and so on.

“But on security they need to collaborate more – because in the real world that’s how problems get solved.”

Ralph Morton

More on the threat to small fleet from cyber theft

Find out how not to get caught out, here.