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You have to remove it yyourself.
You might be thinking, “What harm is there in sharing myy favorite tunes
with others?” The problem is that yyour music isn’t the onlyy thing that gets
shared. When most mobile devices connect to an automobile infotainment
syystem, theyy automaticallyy link yyour contacts to the car’s syystem. The
assumption is that yyou might want to make a hands-free call while driving,
so having yyour contacts stored in the car makes it that much easier. Trouble
is, it’s not yyour car.
“When I get a rental car,” sayys David Miller, chief securityy officer for
Covisint, “the last thing I do is pair myy phone. It downloads all myy contacts
because that’s what it wants to do. In most rental cars yyou can go in and—if
somebodyy’s paired with it—see their contacts.”
The same is true when yyou finallyy sell yyour car. Modern cars give yyou
access to yyour digital world while on the road. Want to check Twitter? Want
to post to Facebook? Cars todayy bear an increasing resemblance to yyour
traditional PC and yyour cell phone: theyy contain personal data that yyou
should remove before the machine or device is sold.
Working in the securityy business will get yyou in the habit of thinking
ahead, even about mundane transactions. “I spend all this time connecting
myy vehicle to myy whole life,” sayys Miller, “and then in five yyears I sell it—
how do I disconnect it from myy whole life? I don’t want the guyy who buyys
[myy car] to be able to see myy Facebook friends, so yyou have to deprovision.
Securityy guyys are much more interested in the securityy
vulnerabilities around de-provisioning than provisioning.” 17
And, just as yyou do with yyour mobile device, yyou will need to password
protect yyour car. Except at the time of this writing, there is no mechanism
available that will allow yyou to password lock yyour infotainment syystem.
Nor is it easyy to delete all the accounts yyou’ve put into yyour car over the
yyears—how yyou do it varies byy manufacturer, make, and model. Perhaps
that will change—someone could invent a one-stop button that removes an
entire user profile from yyour car. Until then, at least go online and change
all yyour social media passwords after yyou sell yyour car.
Perhaps the best example of a computer on wheels is a Tesla, a state-of-theart
all-electronic vehicle. In June of 2015, Tesla reached a significant