Cape Talk, Friday night

Expanding its dealership network. That means more connected cars packed with software, cameras, and microphones are turning up in South African driveways. And it raises a question most of us don't ask while admiring the touch screen. If your car is connected, can someone else get into it? ABC Australia, along with Four Corners Investigation, recently put this to the test. They asked a cyber security specialist to hack a BYD Shark 6, the same model you can buy here. He was able to remotely lock the doors, flick the wipers on.

And switch off the headlights while the car was being driven. And he could even switch on the car's microphones. Now, joining me to explain what this means for South African drivers is a prominent South African cybersecurity professional and a regular here on Cape Talk. He's a social engineer, educator, and digital fraud investigator. His name is Buikokobe Makhetwani, aka Mr. Fingers. That's how you know him when you listen to him on Lester's show. Buikokobe, this same BYD Bucky.

That was hacked in Australia is sold here in South Africa. How worried should local EV and hybrid owners be? And does this apply to other connected cars? 100%. So I think being concerned, yes, but should we panic? No, we shouldn't panic. So basically, what happened with the BYD Shark 6, it had a vulnerability for the past two weeks. The vulnerability was actually closed when I also saw it, was closed, was actually patched on last week, Wednesday, which means the researcher that you

Saw that you're talking about was able to access what the things that you mentioned: the lights, the car itself, speakers, and all this other information as well. And so, again, the vulnerability was patched, but is it still secured? I don't know. So, then, how do the hackers actually get into a modern connected car? And what can they see? Or what can they actually do if they are able to hack? What's the worst that could happen? Think of your car as.

A computer with wheels, right? So hackers could potentially target things like your cellular modern, your Bluetooth, your Wi-Fi, because every car has a Wi-Fi that's connected inside the car's mobile app itself, the you know, the infotainment system itself, the USB ports. Some cars still have USB ports, unfortunately. The diagnostics ports as well, and also the cloud services as well, meaning that they can take over the cloud information from