Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars

hansamurai writes "Over one hundred cars equipped with a Webtech Plus blackbox were remotely disabled when a former employee of dealership Texas Auto Center got hold of his employer's database of users. Webtech Plus is repossession software that allows the dealership to disable a car's ignition or trigger the horn to honk when a payment is due. Owners had to remove the battery to stop the incessant honking. After the dealership began fielding an unusually high number of calls from upset car owners, they changed the passwords to the Webtech Plus software and then traced the IP address used to access the client to its former employee."

Comments

Should have changed password right away

[mlawrence]

As soon as you fire an employee, change the password! You never know what they can access and how they feel about you. Why take the chance?

Re:Back door?

[BitterOak]

Because often times these dealers are selling to people with poor credit or a history of repossession, defaults, etc, and the kill switch is made a condition for a sale that otherwise would not have gone through, finance-wise...

Still entirely tacky...

So these cars are sold only to the high risk customers, and they are fully informed of the system before they choose to make their purchase? And what happens after the last payment is made? Does the dealer still retain the technical ability to remotely disable the car? This sounds a lot like the Amazon Kindle to me.

Re:I don't understand

[bickerdyke]

And then actually elevating that risk by a higher rate helps exactly how?

Talk about self fullfilling prophecies.

"Hmm.. I'd guess you couldn't pay back a loan with 16% a rate, so I'll lend you for 25%!"