Heated Seats? Advanced Telematics? Software-Defined Cars Drive Risk

Software-defined vehicles (SDVs) transform cars into complex, remotely updatable platforms that introduce significant cybersecurity and privacy risks: larger codebases and networked interfaces increase exploitable vulnerabilities (including potential hypervisor escapes and remote-disable mechanisms), off-board infrastructure and supply-chain components expand attack surface, and extensive sensor/telemetry data create privacy and intelligence-collection concerns. While manufacturers have reduced high-severity bugs over time and researchers are improving defensive practices, the report warns that SDVs still require stronger secure development, per-ECU cryptographic credentials, zero-trust V2C designs, and supply-chain integrity policies to mitigate potentially severe safety and fleet-scale impacts.