Nineteen-year-old David Columbo, a security researcher in Germany, was able to take over most of the functions of more than 25 Teslas around the world by hacking into their third-party software. Checking the security of the network ports from a potential client’s company, Columbo happened upon TeslaMate, an open source, self-hosted data logger for Tesla. Exploring further, Columbo was able to run commands on specific Teslas such as “disable Sentry Mode,” “unlock the doors,” “open the windows,” and even “start Keyless Driving,” though he could not get access to the steering, accelerator, and brakes. It’s important to note this was not due to a flaw in Tesla’s infrastructure directly.
