Self-Driving Cars Aren’t That Safe with This Exploit

Self-Driving Cars are starting to become a safer option for the people who want to get to other places fast. However, it’s still an invention that has its issues. Car manufacturers are looking at the possibility of card being hacked and. Quite recently, there have been some threats with an easier exploit: defacing street signs.

How to make cars collide with some stickers

Researchers have found out that it’s relatively easy to throw off an autonomous vehicle’s image recognition system. This is done by strategically using stickers to alter street signs. If an attacker learns how the car classifies incoming objects, they can easily generate a sticker to throw the car’s sensor off. This would make the car think a sign that says “STOP” be interpreted as something else, such as a Speed Limit warning.

This basically can make a common sociopath who wants to see cars burn given an easy access tool. All they need is a printer and stickers. It might lead to a crash the moment someone alters the sign. It could also lead to complete chaos until the stickers are removed from the signs.

However, there are ways that this phenomenon can be fought. One of them being contextual information to verify that a sign is accurate. That way cars wouldn’t care about a STOP sign in the middle of a transited high way. Or a SPEED LIMIT warning on a back road.

There is also the anti-sticker materials governments can implement. Digital signs especially made for car recognition and other counter-measures against this. And more measures can be applied as the cars start to become smarter.

Undoubtedly, the automatic driving cars are the future. However, this could lead to some issues in regards of safety if the technology isn’t implemented well enough. I’d say that the technology still has quite the ways to go. And we can only wait until further testing is done so we can see more results.