Apparently, hacks can pay off.
The two security researchers who demonstrated they could hack into a moving Jeep have been hired by Uber. Charlie Miller, who had been working at Twitter, and Chris Valasek, who worked at security firm IOActive, will join Uber next week. The hires come as the ride-hailing service ramps up its work on technology for self-driving cars.
Miller and Valasek will join the company's Advanced Technologies Center, a research laboratory Uber opened in Pittsburgh in February, staffed with dozens of autonomous vehicle experts hired away from Carnegie Mellon University. Reuters first reported the news, which was confirmed in tweets by Miller and Uber’s Raffi Krikorian.
Miller and Valasek won wide attention last month after demonstrating that they could remotely take control of a moving Jeep Cherokee via the vehicle’s wireless communications system, blasting the radio, killing the engine and bringing the vehicle to a dead stop on the highway. The hack raised fresh concerns about the security of Internet-connected cars.
Related: Hacking of Connected Vehicles Shifts From Theory to Very Scary
Chrysler recalled about 1.4 million cars equipped with certain radios in the wake of the security flaw highlighted by the hackers.