North Carolina man puts a hacked USB into his car to see what happens

This Mazda Miata owner in North Carolina tried doing something you definitely shouldn’t try at home with your car.

He tried to ‘jailbreak’ his Miata with a hacked USB stick, and the result was surprising.

The owner obviously ran into some trouble because of that, but there’s a silver lining to this story.

However, there is also a chilling warning.

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This is what happened when he tried to ‘jailbreak’ his car

A YouTuber from North Carolina who goes by the name Smokin’ Silicon tried to ‘jailbreak’ his Miata.

In tech jargon, jailbreaking essentially means bypassing software restrictions.

He did so by using a hacked USB stick to see what would happen to the infotainment of his Mazda Miata, and the result was quite interesting.

For starters, the system immediately rebooted itself, and the touchscreen stopped working.

The YouTuber then proceeded to make manual changes to his convertible by installing a new digital speedometer and adding a new custom background image.

So far, so good, especially when he pointed out that Android Auto still worked after the jailbreak.

But there are a couple of reasons why this was a little unsettling for some people.

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Here’s why some people in the comments were a little unsettled

Let’s start with the obvious. First, attempting this with your vehicle will automatically void the warranty.

So that’s something to consider.

Second, while the hacked USB didn’t brick or disable his Mazda, there’s no guarantee others will be as lucky.

But the main problem is that this highlights a huge potential issue with modern vehicles: their software is vulnerable.

In recent times, city administrations in Norway, Denmark, and the UK had to find out the hard way that modern vehicles are very vulnerable when it comes to their software.

And the problem is emphasized by the fact that modern vehicles are basically just smartphones on wheels.

The situation is already pretty fragile as it is, so messing with the infotainment system could potentially make it worse.