US official warns of potential dangers of Chinese tech in cars: Catastrophic outcome

The United States has moved to ban Chinese connected-car technology over fears vehicles can spy on – and assassinate – their drivers.“Cars today have cameras, microphones, GPS tracking and other technologies connected to the internet.It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how a foreign adversary with access to this information could pose a serious risk to both our national security and the privacy of citizens,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said earlier this week.“In an extreme situation, foreign adversaries could shut down or take control of all their vehicles operating in the United States all at the same time.”The move came just days after the power of sabotaging key pieces of everyday technology was demonstrated when personal pagers and walkie-talkies were detonated in a widespread attack against Hezbollah jihadist fighters in Lebanon.The attack was allegedly coordinated by Israel, although the nation is yet to accept responsibility.“We’ve already seen ample evidence that [China] pre-positioned malware in our critical infrastructure for disruption and sabotage,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan added.“And with potentially millions of vehicles on the road, each with 10- to 15-year life spans, the risks of disruption and sabotage increase dramatically.”The proposal to ban “connected” Chinese cars comes after the US and its Five Eyes intelligence partners (including Australia) disrupted two large Beijing-sponsored hacking operations targeting more than 200,000 consumer devices worldwide.Earlier this month, the Chinese hacking campaign dubbed Flax Typhoon was revealed to be targeting university, government and telecommunications company employees.Home computers, internet routers and web cameras were among the infiltration targets in a campaign designed to steal sensitive data and track user activities.Earlier this year, another Chinese hacking group – dubbed Volt Typhoon – was discovered infiltrating critical inf...