AUTONEWS

Hackers take full control of a Nissan Leaf via remote hacking

The advancement of connected cars has brought a series of benefits: remote access to functions, over-the-air updates, integration with smartphones and much more.

But this connectivity comes at a price — and, as recently demonstrated in an experiment at the Black Hat Asia 2025 conference, that price can include vulnerability to remote hacking. And the target this time was the Nissan Leaf.

A group of researchers from the Hungarian company PCAutomotive demonstrated, live, how they managed to remotely hack a 2020 Nissan Leaf and take control of several of the car's functions, even while it was in motion.

The goal, fortunately, was to demonstrate security flaws — not to cause actual damage. But the warning is clear: if they could do it, others with bad intentions could too.

The project began with the creation of a test bench using real parts from a Nissan Leaf, including the multimedia center and the digital dashboard.

With these parts in hand, purchased from scrapyards or on eBay, the researchers assembled a complete simulation of the car's electrical system.

They then used a Python script to bypass the anti-theft systems and gain access to the core of the infotainment system.

The presentation included technical details that may seem complex to those without programming experience, but for professionals in the field, the steps are not impossible to replicate — which makes the vulnerability even more worrying.

In the second phase of the experiment, the researchers moved on to real action.

One of the team members remained with a laptop, while the other two were inside a moving Nissan Leaf.

From the computer, the attacker located the car via GPS and then intercepted the conversations of the passengers, recording the audio and playing it back through the vehicle's speakers — all in real time.

But the experiment didn't stop there.

The attacker was able to activate the horn, fold the side mirrors, turn on the windshield wipers and even move the steering wheel — all remotely, without any input from the occupants.

This was done while the car was moving, which makes the situation extremely dangerous in a real attack scenario.

The team identified a total of 10 critical flaws that allowed remote access to the Leaf.

All were reported directly to Nissan, but at the time of publication, the Japanese automaker had not yet commented on the incident, nor announced any type of update or security fix.

The Leaf case is a warning to the entire automotive industry: the race for connectivity cannot leave cybersecurity in the background.

Today, modern vehicles are as dependent on software as they are on mechanics, and digital flaws can be as dangerous as a brake failure.

The PCAutomotive researchers did not cause any damage, but they showed that it is possible.

And if it is possible, it is only a matter of time before someone with darker intentions tries the same thing — with potentially catastrophic consequences.

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