Threat level reports more than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.
Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.
“We initially dismissed it as mechanical failure,” says Texas Auto Center manager Martin Garcia. “We started having a rash of up to a hundred customers at one time complaining. Some customers complained of the horns going off in the middle of the night. The only option they had was to remove the battery.”
The dealership used a system called Webtech Plus as an alternative to repossessing vehicles that haven’t been paid for. Operated by Cleveland-based Pay Technologies, the system lets car dealers install a small black box under vehicle dashboards that responds to commands issued through a central website, and relayed over a wireless pager network. The dealer can disable a car’s ignition system, or trigger the horn to begin honking, as a reminder that a payment is due. The system will not stop a running vehicle.
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This should not even be able or allowed by any auto dealer to have that kind of control. what that ex employee did was wrong but he helped air this unconstitutional black box controller to the American people and the auto dealer should be sued……
Webtech Plus…Pay Technologies…Do customers give their permission to install this crap when they purchase the vehicle? Or are they being “bugged” without their knowledge? How is this legal? Really, I want to know! What dealership was this and is this an on-going practice at all dealerships?
This demonstrates a need to keep your own passwords and user names secure. Don’t write them down or leave them where anyone else has access to them. All this former employee needed to do was write down some one else’s ID before he left and was able to cause a whole mess of trouble for a lot of trouble for many families.