The hacking of a Mitsubishi Outlander hybrid car in the U.K. is setting off more alarms about the safety and security of WiFi smart car apps as well as other devices in the Internet of Things or the “systems of systems.” How secure are your apps?

The BBC reported in great detail about the hacking of the Outlander and other threats.

“The alarm on Mitsubishi’s Outlander hybrid car can be turned off via security bugs in its on-board WiFi, researchers have found,” the BBC said.

The hack led to a warning from the manufacturer.

“Mitsubishi recommended that users turn off the WiFi while it investigates the issues with the system,” the BBC added.

The story and other incidences of systems being hacked concerns Mark Skilton, a researcher of cyber security issues and a n Information Systems professor at London’s Warwick Business School.

Warwick notes that “failures of poorly configured WiFi security access has occurred in other high profile cases in the past couple of years,” including “the hacking of the inflight entertainment system in 2015 by security researchers on a United Airlines flight” and the “hacking nearly 100 networked traffic lights in Michigan … enabling the changing of light commands at will.”

Here’s what Skilton has to say about WiFi and apps vulnerability – and what needs to be done to correct the hacking vulnerabilities:

“These are not a failure of the system itself. All these hacks exploited poor design of the systems’ security design. In all these cases the entry point has been compromised and it allowed the hacker to gain access to other systems on board that could include and threaten human safety.

“This illustrates two critical issues of the ‘system of systems’; firstly to isolate access points to devices and systems that are used by the public as much as you would with secure private systems such as bank accounts or personal medical records. If professional researchers are finding this then equally hackers will also find these weaknesses.

“Secondly, the lack of an audit and professional checking of these systems by manufacturers is more an issue of corporate incompetence when basic mistakes such as poor WiFi set-up and a lack of resilience in encryption procedures have not been followed.

“Cars are increasingly having on-board connectivity to the internet beyond just entertainment and to the operation of the car itself.  But, while access to email and websites is one thing, access to mission critical systems in any situation – be it a building, operating theatre or transport vehicle – is a whole different set of risk and security issues.”

Read more from the BBC at:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36444586