A few years ago, the biggest lasting “disease” a used car buyer had to be wary of was rust. One little spot of it when looking at a potential car could mean there were large ravaged area hidden from view. In this day and age with the advancement of technology used in our vehicles, there’s an all new threat on the horizon – and this one isn’t as easy to see. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Washington recently discovered that your car may in fact be in danger from malicious software.

Possible points of entry and weak points in your cars security net include built in Bluetooth systems, the diagnostic tools used at service stations and your beloved stereo system. The average Joe on the street will easily avoid the first possible issue, built in Blutooth isn’t a common feature on most affordable cars, however, how do you begin to avoid the other two? While it would be difficult to police the tools of all repair shops, you can at least do something about your stereo system.

The researchers found that they were able to add certain lines of code to an MP3 file which was then burnt to CD and loaded into the cars stereo. From here, the file behaved as a trojan horse by altering the stereo firmware, which in turn exposed various other car components to attack such as the door locks, engine, brakes and even the speedometer.

There’s no need to panic just yet though, this isn’t a problem you’ll most likely encounter for a little while, but it certainly is something to consider. Perhaps we should go back to using cassette tapes.