China bans foreign-made EVs from being anywhere near sensitive military or government sites. Because they’re well aware that ‘smart’ EVs are mobile spy stations. So, why does our own government encourage even its ministers to drive Chinese-made EVs?
How do Australia’s security agencies not have an aneurysm when our Home Affairs Minister, for Pete’s sake, is driving a Chinese-made EV? Oh, but he turns the Bluetooth off while he’s driving. Well, that’s reassuring. I mean, it’s not like any of us have ever noticed that our phones are clearly listening in on us, even when we’ve specified in the settings not to.
The security risks of EVs are so obvious that even the taxpayer-funded Marxist propaganda collective ABC is on to it.
On a country road outside Canberra, a reporter sat behind the wheel of a BYD Shark 6, the same plug-in hybrid ute driven by Trade Minister Don Farrell. He was not the only one driving it. A Canberra cybersecurity man, Dan Hreszczuk of Fortify Labs, had spent a fortnight with the thing. Then he sat by the roadside and started pressing keys.
Headlights died. Wipers went berserk. Doors locked from the outside. The giant screen lit up. The speakers barked “For safety, use low beam” on a loop.
His task was to hack the vehicle and find out what could be seen and done remotely by the Shark’s Chinese manufacturer.
“It was easier than we were expecting,” Hreszczuk says.
Let that settle. Not some nation-state zero-day cooked up in a PLA basement. The digital front door was ajar. “I didn’t need to pick the lock,” Hreszczuk says, “As BYD left the front door open.”
Does anyone think that was a mere oversight?
If a hacker in Australia can do it, you better bet Xi Jinping’s 50 Cent Army can do it with their eyes closed. Chinese national security law can compel a company like BYD to play along with Beijing whether the marketing department likes it or not. The software that runs the car lives in China. The sensors, microphones and cameras hoover up everything. Half of Australia’s booming EV and hybrid sales this year are Chinese brands. We’re importing CCP listening posts by the hundreds of thousands, and deluding ourselves it’s climate policy.
If a hacker in Canberra can turn off lights, and commandeer the steering and the connected AI assistant, what’s to stop a hacker in Beijing running the car and its occupant into a tree, or through a crowded mall? Or overloading the battery and turning it into a giant bomb?
Even the British, currently approving plans for a CCP mega-spy centre in the middle of London, aren’t so clueless as their Australian counterparts.
Last year, the UK military banned Chinese EVs, even those made with Chinese components, from parking within 3 kilometres of some of its most sensitive locations.
China itself has previously banned foreign EVs from military sites and political enclaves, aware of their surveillance potential.
In Australia, there’s no blanket ban on Chinese marques by Defence, but ASIO has warned ministers and public servants not to have sensitive conversations in their cars or connect work devices.
Hands up anyone who believes a minister remembers to toggle Bluetooth every time he climbs in.
Hreszczuk used even the low-level access he easily managed to turn the car into a listening post. While the reporter drove past the War Memorial chatting to his mother about internet banking – house number, initials, date of birth, the lot – the microphone was live. The conversation was recorded. A spliced “Hey Siri” later played back through the car’s own speakers into an unlocked phone left on the seat and Siri helpfully recited home address, age, date of birth, and Malcolm Turnbull’s number. The temporary banking password followed in minutes.
This was not some Mission: Impossible hacking genius.
Hreszczuk’s hacking challenge was made easier because Australia has no minimum cybersecurity standards for cars. That means BYD is not compelled to keep its software up to date or have a system for managing cybersecurity risks to its vehicles.
“I didn’t need to pick the lock as BYD left the front door open,” he says.
Alastair MacGibbon, once the country’s national cyber security adviser, puts it bluntly: “A cabinet minister should not be able to own a Chinese EV.”
“China has always shown its strong desire to steal things, to surveil,” he says.
“No one should be in any doubt that [Chinese EVs] are used in the same manner.
“The real question would come down [to]: Could they cause harm with these vehicles? The capability is definitely there.
“Is the intent? I don’t know.”
Oh, I think we all know.
BYD insists Australian data stays in Australia and would never be handed to Chinese authorities. We all know that that’s a blatant lie, because we can all read China’s own laws.
China would never let an Australian-made smart car idle outside the Central Military Commission. We let theirs drive right into the Parliament House Ministerial parking lot.
