Officials in Denmark are urgently studying methods to seal an seeming security loophole in many Chinese-made electric buses that allows them to be disabled remotely.
This inquiry comes after transport authorities in Norway, where the Yutong buses are also in service, found that the Chinese supplier had distant control for software updates and system checks to the vehicles’ control systems – which may be manipulated to impact vehicles while in transit.
“The testing exposed threats that we are now taking measures against,” commented the chief executive of the public transport authority. “Federal and regional authorities have been notified and must help with additional measures at a federal level.”
Their analysis found that online disabling could be blocked by extracting the buses’ sim cards, but they have refrained from this because it would also isolate the bus from other systems.
The biggest Danish public transport company runs 469 China-made e-buses, with over 260 of these made by Yutong.
“E-buses – similar to electric cars – can be remotely deactivated if their operating programs have internet connectivity,” stated a chief operating officer. “This is not a Chinese bus problem. It is a problem for various sorts of vehicles and systems with China-produced components incorporated.”
National authorities for civil protection and emergency management reported that it was had no knowledge of any particular incidents in which electric buses had been deactivated, but advised that the vehicles were equipped with “subsystems with online access and sensors (imaging devices, audio recorders, GPS) that can represent weaknesses which could be used to disrupt bus operations”.
The manufacturer said it “fully adheres with applicable laws and sector requirements” and that transport data in the EU were kept at a server facility in Frankfurt.
“This data is used solely for vehicle-related maintenance, optimisation and improvement to meet client support requirements,” commented a official speaker. “These details is safeguarded with storage encryption and security protocols. Not anyone is authorized to see this data without customer authorisation.”
A regional councillor said that Denmark has been “way too slow” when it came to dependency regarding Chinese companies.
“This is a significant concern. We cannot afford to be so leaning on a country that has values and ideals so different to Denmark,” he added. At a time when Denmark was working to boost its resilience amid claims of combined threats by Russia, “it's hardly robust to be totally dependent on China”.
Transportation authorities in Norway refused to speak on the matter.
A geospatial analyst with over a decade of experience in terrain modeling and environmental data visualization.
