It's the stuff of TV shows, for now.
But how long until it becomes our reality?
Picture this: a freeway full of driverless cars are racing together at 80mph when a hacker suddenly uses remote access to slam the breaks on half of the cars.
The resulting pileup could be like nothing we've ever seen.
And now a well-known computer science professor at New York University's Secure Systems Lab says millions will be at risk from scenarios where bad actors take over control of cars.
"If there was a war or escalation with a country with strong cybercapability, I would be very afraid of hacking of vehicles," Dr. Justin Cappos recently told UK Government leaders. "Many of our enemies are nuclear powers but any nation with the ability to launch a cyberstrike could kill millions of civilians by hacking cars. It's daunting."
"Components in cars are not good at understanding where messages come from and whether they are authentic," the Daily Mail reported him as saying.
It's the reason we recently wrote about the Auto-ISAC's efforts to create a secure hub for autonomous cars. And they envision a secure auto app store, as well.