Gadgetory

tis the season for revealing devastating security flaws I'm Bridget Carey this is your cnet update over the past several days we've learned of many new ways to get hacked Chrysler's car entertainment systems can be tapped into wirelessly to send commands to a Jeep Cherokee and as wired showed us in this video report hackers can take over the steering wheel mess with the brakes even kill the engine and it sent the reporter driving the car into a ditch and thanks to another security researcher we learned hackers can break into an Android phone just by sending one text message with a video or photo file that's packed with a hidden malicious code also there's a husband and wife program or power couple that discovered a way to wirelessly hack into a high-tech internet connected rifle to change its settings so the bullet will miss the target when you have a rifle that can be connected wirelessly to a smartphone app you're just asking to be hacked and there's yet another car hack possible according to security researcher Samy Kamkar he posted this video to YouTube explain how it's possible to hack GM cars with OnStar using the remote link app he created a device that can be placed anywhere on the car even hidden behind the back bumper and it can give a hacker access to the same controls on the app such as being able to locate the exact location with GPS and then unlock the doors and start the engine but the hacker couldn't drive off without the key if you're wondering why you're hearing about so many devastating security vulnerabilities this month don't blame the blue moon it's because the biggest cyber security conferences of the year black hat and Def Con are taking place in Las Vegas during the first week of August and the researchers are teasing their presentations to the press the world's top security researchers and hackers gather to showcase their findings at these events and you can expect car hacking to be a big topic the good news is that all these hacks i mentioned have been reported to the company so patches are being worked on but who can say how many problems have been discovered that have not been reported companies need to do more to think about security when they're connecting everything to the internet and see kind of having the internet everywhere Facebook is ready to start testing a massive solar powered drone that will provide internet access to underdeveloped countries named Aquila this drone has the wingspan of a 737 but it weighs hundreds of times less and it can hover in the stratosphere 11 miles above the earth for three months straight Facebook has nearly 1.5 billion users but there are 4 billion people in the world without access to the Internet so for facebook to grow it needs to get those people connected and putting the internet above the earth is seen as a better alternative than building out the towers and installing fiber-optic cable on land that's it for this tech news update and you can always get more news at cnet com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey