At the Defcon hacker conference next month, two renowned security experts, Mark Rogers of “CloudFlare” and Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder of mobile security company “Lookout,” will reveal five glitches in the vehicle’s software design, according to a report from Forbes. A sixth flaw was independently uncovered by Tesla and has been fixed according to Rogers and Mahaffey. Talking to Forbes, they said they do not plan to reveal any insights linked to the glitches before their “epic” talk at the conference, aimed at uncovering vehicular software glitches live on stage for the first time. They will also release a tool for car owners that they claim will make it easier for highly connected vehicles like the Model S to analyze data inflow and outflow. It is not known whether the above hacking challenge is done under Tesla approval but it will be shipping the Model S unit to Defcon for the same. Though the Model S may be shipped for advertising and not be related to this challenge. Tesla has not been a big fan of such hacking challenges especially in open fora. The company did not officially endorse the much-publicized hacking competition at the SyScan conference in Beijing in July 2014, which offered tech geeks a reward of $10,000 if they cracked a Tesla Model S. At the 2014, SyScan conference, Zhejiang University students have hacked the Tesla Model S with an attack that enabled them to open its doors and sun roof, switch on the headlights and sound the horn – all while the car was driving along. Sadly they won just $1,700 for the effort. While another entrant named team ‘yo’ exploited an unspecified flaw in the flow design of the car gaining access to the Model S allowing them to alter the car functions while it was in motion. This flaw has not been made public thus far.
