A New Frontier for Hackers: Your Car

A downside to in-car access to the Internet is that it could give hackers and identity thieves in-car access to your personal data, too.

Ford (F) is emerging as a leader in factory-installed Internet access, through its Ford Sync communications system. The latest version of Sync facilitates in-car access to anything on the Internet you can reach through your mobile smartphone -- which is to say just about anything.

Unfortunately, that could cut two ways, for legitimate and for illegitimate uses. Ford said this week that 11 million people in the United States were victims of identity theft and fraudulent accounts in 2009. Within that number, nearly one-third of fraudulent accounts were opened via mobile phone technology, Ford said.

"As the use of smartphones escalates - with 174 million shipped globally in 2009 alone - concern over identity and information theft continues to rise," the company said.

Ford introduced a new generation of Sync at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, which was co-developed with Microsoft (MSFT). In addition, Ford is adding later this year a hugely improved "human-machine interface" called MyFord Touch, developed with Apple (AAPL), which replaces many switches and knobs with a multi-purpose touch-screen.

The new Ford systems come with many of the same protections that home and office computers have, like firewalls and password protection. The net effect is to make it impossible for a stranger to jump in the car and help themselves to items like pre-programmed destinations in the navigation system, like "home"; for someone to attempt to "synch" a new mobile device to the in-car system without having to enter a password; or for anyone to insert a USB stick and steal your downloaded songs. It's also highly unlikely that anybody could hack into your in-car system remotely, without actually being inside the car, Ford said.

You wouldn't leave your car keys in the car. Similarly, even high-tech systems demand some common sense, like not leaving your phone in the car unattended.

"Consumers want and need to know that their personal or professional information in their vehicle is specific only to them," said Jim Buczkowski, director, Ford Electronics and Electrical Systems Engineering.

Photo: Ford