Tesla has been lauded as the most modern and technologically advanced automaker on the market today. They don’t build any vehicles with a gasoline powered engine inside them and are working on a factory that could be self-sustaining. Their technology allows for over the air updates to their vehicles rather than have the cars and SUV brought to a dealership, which they also don’t have, to be updated and given the most advanced software links. With all that in mind we should assume Tesla also has the best online security of all automakers to protect owners from possible hacks into their vehicles.

Just like most other automakers, Tesla does have some researchers working on hacking their vehicles at all times. This is to help identify holes in their security so they can have them patched and help keep all owners safe from hackers. Recently the researchers at the Keen Security Lab in China have come across a way to hack into the Tesla Model Sand can do so from a distance that is greater than any other has been up to this point.

Typically when a hacker tries to get into a vehicle and take over control of the driving or braking this has to be done from a vantage point that’s near the vehicle which is the target of the hack. This team from China was able to manipulate the braking of the Model S from a distance of twelve miles away. This team also found ways to take of the information screens and cause them to be useless when driving, they hacked in and moved the seats remotely and turned on the wipers from a remote location. This was the result of finding holes in the security code of Tesla.

It took the team several months to discover the holes in the security systems and execute the hack, but the most important part is they did this without physically changing the Model S, which does happen in the case of some hacks. If you want to know more about how they actually hacked the car, then watch this video. These security issues were demonstrated and only triggered when the web browser is being used, but if it’s in proximity to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspot this could happen and another person could take over the control of your Tesla Model S if they knew how to do it. Even though the chances of this hack taking place in an uncontrolled environment are very low Tesla did respond appropriately.

Within ten days of learn about this problem Tesla deployed and over the air software update (v7.1.2.36.31) which corrects this problem and makes sure every Tesla model S is safe from this type of hack. The challenge for Tesla is the same as for every automaker, with millions of lines of code it’s hard to know where the hack can come from and where the holes in the security are. Tesla plans to commend this team with a reward from their bug bounty program which is in place to encourage teams to perform this type of research.