What's Up With Uber Hiring Automobile Hackers?

Uber just hired two hackers those guys who wirelessly hijacked a Jeep Cherokee last month! The hackers, namely Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, turned off the SUV's engine and disabled its brakes. This had forced Chrysler to recall 1.4 million units of the model. Mr. Miller and Mr. Valasek also have a history of hacking into a Ford Escape and Toyota Prius.

Miller, who worked at Twitter, and Valasek who worked at IOActive, a security firm, will join Uber one week from now. The choice highlights increasing concerns among security specialists over wireless security, as cars turn out to be increasingly connected and move toward driverless technology.

Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek

"For cars to be able to self-drive, they have to be able to negotiate with each other. You can't negotiate something like that without having some security principles behind it,” Mr. Schwartz (president of digital security firm White Ops).  “So cars have to do basic things that we do with each other, like recognise each other.” That innovation leaves space for possibly a huge number of hidden security issues, he said.

Presently the two men are set to join in Uber's Advanced Technologies Center, a research lab that the organization opened in Pittsburgh not long ago and has following loaded with top researchers and analysts, most from places like Google and Carnegie Mellon University.

The objective, the organization said, is "to keep building out a world-class wellbeing and security program at Uber," which has concentrated on creating both automated car technology and information security.