Tesla security weakness exposed by teenage hacker

A 19-year-old security researcher from Germany has allegedly been able to hack into 25 Tesla vehicles across 13 countries, exposing a weakness with some of the manufacturer's vehicles.

David Colombo tweeted to say he had been able remotely access certain functions on various Tesla models, allowing him to unlock doors, open windows, start the vehicles remotely and totally disable their security systems, all from the comfort of his home.

Worryingly, the teenager also claimed early in his Twitter thread that there was no clear way for the owners to report a security breach, potentially delaying the manufacturer from rectify the issue if it was done maliciously.

In a wise move to potentially save himself from the wrath of Tesla's legal team, Colombo chose not to specify the process of hacking into the vehicles but said the issue was not due to any fault of Tesla, rather the owners.

"This is not a vulnerability in Tesla‘s infrastructure. It‘s the owners faults. That‘s why I would need to report this to the owners," he said.

"I could also query the exact location, see if a driver is present and so on. The list is pretty long.

"And yes, I also could remotely Rick Roll the affected owners by playing Rick Astley on YouTube in their Teslas."

If the thought of having "Never Gonna Give You Up" suddenly blasting at full volume on your sound system isn't enough to make you check your security settings, what will?