Skip to main content

American drivers concerned about hacking of autonomous cars, says survey

An online survey by the University of Michigan Sustainable Worldwide Transportation Department asked American adults about their level of concern with cyber-security of personally owned autonomous vehicles (with and without driver controls) and current conventional vehicles looked at both vehicle security and data privacy. Within vehicle security, the issues examined were hacking vehicles to cause crashes, hacking by terrorists to use the vehicle as a weapon, disabling many vehicles simultaneously and di
February 8, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
An online survey by the University of Michigan Sustainable Worldwide Transportation Department asked American adults about their level of concern with cyber-security of personally owned autonomous vehicles (with and without driver controls) and current conventional vehicles looked at both vehicle security and data privacy.

Within vehicle security, the issues examined were hacking vehicles to cause crashes, hacking by terrorists to use the vehicle as a weapon, disabling many vehicles simultaneously and disabling the main traffic-management system. Within data privacy, the issues examined were gaining access to data on personal travel patterns and gaining access to personal information not related to travel.

According to the report, Cyber-security Concerns with Self-Driving and Conventional Vehicles, researchers found that hacking of autonomous vehicles with controls is of greater concern than hacking of conventional vehicles. However, hacking of vehicles is of concern even for conventional vehicles.

Respondents also said hacking of autonomous vehicles without controls is of greater concern than hacking of autonomous vehicles with controls. They also expressed more concern about hacking to gain control of vehicles or the main traffic management system than hacking of vehicles to get access to personal information.

Related Content

  • New Riderscan survey on ITS and motorcycling safety
    January 17, 2014
    The Riderscan project is launching its third and last survey targeting European motorcyclists. Focusing on new technologies and powered two wheelers (PTW), the survey will feed the Riderscan report on traffic management, providing a unique opportunity to European riders to express their views on coming intelligent transport technologies. Riderscan aims to bridge the gap between road safety authorities, researchers, and industry stakeholders by setting up a detailed survey over ITS systems in relation wit
  • Technology, shifts in behaviour can improve urban transportation, says Conduent
    May 24, 2017
    According to Conduent’s Customer Experience of Urban Travel report that details findings from a survey conducted in 23 cities in 15 countries, although improved infrastructure plays a critical role in reshaping mobility in today’s cities, the biggest factor in improving urban travel is changing human behaviour. Researchers found that transportation selection is based on habit rather than rational choice, noting that respondents around the globe chose driving their own car over other modes of transport for r
  • Automotive software developers call on hackers to find its flaws
    January 20, 2017
    A consortium of US researchers has announced the development of a universal, free, and open-source framework to protect wireless software updates in vehicles. The team issued a challenge to security experts everywhere to try to find vulnerabilities before it is adopted by the automotive industry. The new solution, called Uptane, evolves the widely used TUF (The Update Framework), developed by NYU Tandon School of Engineering Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Justin Cappos to secure
  • Front crash prevention slashes police-reported rear-end crashes, says IIHS
    January 29, 2016
    Vehicles equipped with front crash prevention are much less likely to rear-end other vehicles, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has found in the first study of the feature's effectiveness using US police-reported crash data. The study found that systems with automatic braking reduce rear-end crashes by about 40 per cent on average, while forward collision warning alone cuts them by 23 per cent. The automatic braking systems also greatly reduce injury crashes.