Harman International says its Kardon car infotainment system is “safe and secure”

According to a Reuters report, Harman International Industries Inc. has asserted that the hacking risk which prompted Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler to announce a recall of 1.4 million vehicles last month is seemingly restricted only to Chrysler vehicles.

Harman is the supplier of Kardon-branded car infotainment systems to Fiat Chrysler and several other automakers, including BMW, Daimler and Volvo. In Fiat Chrysler vehicles, Harman’s Kardon infotainment products are part of the automaker’s Internet-connected Uconnect telematics system --- a collection of driver aids and entertainment services.

With two veteran cybersecurity researchers having exploited a Uconnect vulnerability last month, to break into a Jeep Cherokee when it was being driven on the highway, Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal said during a recent interview with Reuters that his company believes that the mentioned hacking risk probably does not exist for any other cars outside of Fiat Chrysler.

Drawing attention to the fact that Fiat Chrysler’s Uconnect telematics system users Kardon products as well as software and network connectivity provided by other companies, Paliwal said: “Our (Harman’s) system was safe and secure.”

Further adding that the Jeep Cherokee was seemingly rooted in a “hole” or port opening in a network, Paliwal said, in reference to a potential hacking risk for Fiat Chrysler vehicles: “Once you leave the door of the house open, somebody will walk in and they can do whatever they want.”