Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 6:24:57 to 6:30:04
The committee discusses a Four Corners investigation into the hacking of connected vehicles, exploring the technical difficulty of remote access and current safety standards.
Topics: Online safety, Public safety
Speakers: Melissa Cashman, Hon Bridget McKenzie, Unknown Speaker, Senator Ross Cadell
>> I saw the program, Cindy. Yes.
Did you contact the ABC post the program to let them know the status of standards?
>> Uh I no I haven't done that.
>> Recognizing that cyber security is a primarily a responsibility for another agency. What action has the department taken since that report um to engage with Australia's cyber security center and um to ensure adequate cyber security is embedded in our connected cars to
conversations with the security counterparts in the Commonwealth where we came to the position where we decided that implementing the United Nations regulations was the best way to go for a start. We have regular conversations with them including through my colleague uh Mike Min. We have another branch in our department that looks at um connected vehicles as well. Um uh and as Miss Lang Langford said, the meeting that we had with um the peak bodies a couple of weeks ago, we had representatives from the Australian Signals Directorate and Department of Home Affairs there to talk directly to the industry uh to answer any of their questions. How many
connected vehicles have been imported um since since the um July 2022?
Uh, I could get you the figure on the number of vehicles imported, Senator. I'm
>> not the number of vehicles, the number of connected vehicles, which is what
>> So, these days, most vehicles have some level of connectivity. It depends uh what type of connectivity you're interested,
>> the type that someone can switch on and off safety features from outside of this
country. So the entity that undertook that work for the ABC had to have physical control of that vehicle for two weeks and had to embed extra wiring into the vehicle to be able to as as the article said hack into the system. You could do that to virtually any vehicle
increasing concern that there seems to have been a go slow on adopting an Australian standard of which all connected vehicles that are being imported into our country aren't meeting that we can't actually guarantee um Australians safety.
>> Yeah, it's not a go slow senator. We have been working on this consistently since the matters were >> It has taken a while. It's this is a significant change for our industry. We have to make sure it's done very well to be effective and that's what we've been working to do. Um on the issue of the particulars of that um the article that that was there uh I also note that they weren't able to hack into the hack into the drivetrain of the vehicle. A lot of the vehicles that come from markets that that have a standard uh al already very secure as that uh as that story actually uh told it did take quite a significant amount of work to be able to uh tamper with some of the electronics and even then with that level of expertise and that level of access to the vehicle they still couldn't uh affect the drivetrain of the vehicle.
>> Does the People's Republic of China have a standard that meets the UN's
>> They have a standard. China doesn't apply the United Nations um standard u but they do have a standard for cyber security
>> and is it a standard that we would
>> I couldn't tell you what what the details of the China standard. I'm
>> Are there standards are there cars sold in Australia that don't meet the UN standard currently
>> that don't meet the
>> UN standard?
>> We don't assess them at the moment yet Senator because Yeah. So cars coming from Europe, European built cars >> because the standard is is basically on the manufacturer, not vehicle by vehicle. So it's very likely >> European cars are the problem, >> but we don't assess the European um uh we sorry we don't assess for the standard because it's not Australian law
>> Okay. Are there additional legislative measures required to ensure auto manufacturers supplying Australia have integrated adequate cyber security systems into their builds to protect the safety of Australian motorists?
>> Additional >> cyber security. Yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by this one is a package, Senator. So, it requires not only Australian designed rules, it will require a little tweak to our rules to make it effective because the cyber security standards aren't something that you sort of just build and put into the car. It creates a requirement for a management system from the manufacturer. So, that will part of it will have to be added into our rules. But apart from that, as far as what the sec the cyber security regulations are meant to manage, no that would be the only changes that are required
>> and a tiny change that's taken thus far for years.
>> That's part of the package. The actual tweak to the rules senator will just be one line as far as I understand at this stage depending on the outcomes of the