GPS: On a road to nowhere

Is nothing sacred?  By now you will no doubt have heard our last bastion of safety and comfort, our cars, is under attack.  Yes, it is being reported that hackers now have the ability to intercept and change the GPS data being sent to our cars. 

Apparently, they can even fool our navigation systems into directing us to false destinations.  Drivers could be led into dark alleys or other remote locations as a prank or, worse yet, to be robbed.  One can readily imagine the lengths to which this insidious threat could go.  I can see a day when marketers-turned-hackers convince my car to take me to a Starbucks when I have programmed it to take me to Pete’s Coffee or, more horribly, to McDonalds when I really wanted a White Castle hamburger. 

Is there no end to the madness?  This is not the latest Quentin Tarantino movie but, if the latest reports on the Web are to be believed, is the world we live in. 

In all seriousness, this latest rumor/threat demonstrates how quickly real and imaginary threats make their way around the Internet.  Businesses must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff and focus their limited budgets on threats that pose a clear and imminent risk.  We actually received a call shortly after this story started circulating from a large business worried about the safety of its drivers following potentially misleading driving directions.

This reminds me of a similar call from a technology manager who wanted to know if our standard antivirus warranty for software licenses would apply to the Asian Bird Flu.  A little common sense goes a long way when it comes to security threats, particularly those circulating on the ‘Net.

Until next time, drive safely and double check those GPS directions.