Progressive Snapshot is a free usage-based insurance scheme that tracks and awards safe driving behavior. Contrary to comparable usage-based programs, Snapshot customers can choose between two driving markers, i.e., a smartphone app or a monitoring device inserted into the vehicle’s OBD plug. They report their driving records with Progressive and earn a price on the vehicle insurance.

According to a report, Progressive Snapshot technologies lack actual protective actions and can help hackers to hack vehicles. Let’s see important details about Progressive Snapshot Hack.

Progressive Snapshot

A tiny unit that plugs in the vehicle’s On-Board Diagnostics Type 2 (OBD-II) connector. The OBD-II program enables automobile professionals to analyze vehicle activity and approach virtually every part of your automobile, including the motor, powertrain, brakes, gearbox, and electronic items.

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The Snapshot tool is 2″ X 3″ in dimensions yet contains many components. It is equipped with a micro sd card, a mobile radio, and a Geolocation radio that connects to satellites to track its whereabouts. While driving, the Snapshot sensor continually streams data from your car to Progressive’s computers. To figure out what is on the inside, check the patent.

Progressive Snapshot Hack

Cory Thuen, a security analyst at Digital Bond Labs, gets a Snapshot device installed in about two million vehicles. He disassembled it, found out how it operated, and installed it in his car. He found that Snapshot lacks a built-in encryption feature, electronic verification signs, traffic data encryption, and self-authentication.

The organization claimed to have found how to hack Snapshot through reverse engineering and could gain access to a vehicle’s crucial features, including steer, brakes, and accelerator. Clearly, if it got into evil hands, it might be quite terrifying.

Snapshot devices send raw text messages to Progressive via the mobile network. This means it would be quite simple for a hacker to build a fraudulent cell tower and launch a man-in-the-middle hack.

Regardless of these significant security flaws, the item can still interact with the CAN bus. In light of this, it is easy for a distant hacker to introduce malware into the system that manages the safeties and emergency controls in your vehicle using a Snapshot adapter. Incorporating code into the vehicle’s design was the limit of Thuen’s task. He says all he wanted to know was whether there was any safety to prevent him from committing it.

Naturally, Progressive immediately countered that the researcher could not control a car and had no proof that anybody else could either. In addition, Progressive stated that they will look into the situation because protection is of utmost importance. The matters after this incident are unknown till now. 

You could insert code in your vehicle while driving fast along the highway to start the computerized parallel parking help. But, as your vehicle is moving, lots of additional signals are being processed by the ECUs. So, the hacker would need to overpower the CAN network with sufficient signals to cancel out all of the valid data that the vehicle’s detectors are producing to activate automated parallel parking help (or another function).

The best part is that only a few individuals are researching CAN buses. In contrast, many individuals are engaged in internet security research. As companies start incorporating browsers and other Web technology into the vehicles they design and sell, vehicle hacking is sure to take up.

Progressive Snapshot Hack Against You

By registering in the Snapshot scheme, you also accept Progressive using the information they collected about you to deny your case. Most customers won’t have an issue with this, but it is still alarming that you are providing an insurance provider complete authority over the utilization of the information to negatively affect the result of a complaint or the cost of your insurance payments. 

How would you think your defense would do if you were driving faster than the legal, safe speed at the date of a complaint? This problem is bidirectional; if you were driving carefully, you might use statistics to back up your assertion.

The goal of this regulation is to lessen bogus claims and fairly distribute blame among all stakeholders. If you are in an accident where you are at fault, you should immediately take the Snapshot device out of sight so that the opposing party wouldn’t notice it and feel obligated to demand the recordings. That information is solely for your insurance provider and you.

But sometimes it’s not awful. The information may be of great assistance if you are falsely charged with a crime. The information gathered with his Progressive Snapshot enabled a man to be cleared of all murder-related charges.

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Conclusion

Overall, the Snapshot initiative succeeded in achieving its declared goal. Many individuals became safer drivers as a result of it. You may disagree with several program features, but given its inexperience, I believe the corporation is continuously adjusting it to meet its requirements.