---
title: "A Hacker Says He Can Kill Your Car’s Engine While You’re Driving"
description: "A hacker recently took control of over 27,000 drivers' accounts in apps that can monitor — and remotely disable — their car."
date: "2019-04-24"
modified: "2019-04-24"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/hacker-turn-off-engine-car"
categories:
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "cybersecurity"
  - "hacking"
  - "the digest"
  - "transport"
---

# A Hacker Says He Can Kill Your Car’s Engine While You’re Driving

![A hacker recently took control of over 27,000 drivers' accounts in apps that can monitor — and remotely disable — their car.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/hacker-turn-off-engine-car.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Shutterstock/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Car Hacks

A hacker recently demonstrated that he could access two popular vehicle-monitoring apps that let him monitor where the cars were located, access drivers' private information, and even kill the engines remotely.

The hack targeted two apps, iTrack and ProTrack, that companies can use to monitor their fleets of vehicles, [according to *Motherboard*](<https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmpx4x/hacker-monitor-cars-kill-engine-gps-tracking-apps?utm_source=mbtwitter>). The attack, which the hacker said he did to draw attention to flimsy cybersecurity, serves as a cautionary tale to double check your security practices — all 27,000-plus compromised accounts used the default password "123456."

## Terrible Traffic

The hacker could also monitor each driver on a map view, just as an employer might. Both apps also come with a "kill engine" button that turns off a car if it's traveling less than 12 miles per hour, which the hacker told *Motherboard* he didn't touch out of safety concerns.

"I can absolutely make a big traffic problem all over the world," the hacker told *Motherboard*. "I have \[full\] control \[of hundreds\] of thousands of vehicles, and by one touch, I can stop these vehicles engines."

## Gray Hat

The hacker said that he demanded a ransom from the two companies, but that he was mostly interested in advocating for their customers.

"My target was the company, not the customers," the hacker told *Motherboard*. "Customers are at risk because of the company. They need to make money, and don't want to secure their customers."

**READ MORE:** [Hacker Can Monitor Cars And Kill Their Engines After Breaking Into GPS Tracking Apps](<https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmpx4x/hacker-monitor-cars-kill-engine-gps-tracking-apps?utm_source=mbtwitter>) \[*Motherboard*\]

**More on cybersecurity:** *[Japan Plans to Hack 200 Million Devices to Prepare for Olympics](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/japan-hack-devices-olympics>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)