As I drove to the top of the parking lot ramp, the car's engine suddenly shut off, and I started to roll backward. I expected this to happen, but it still left me wide-eyed.

As I drove to the top of the parking lot ramp, the car's engine suddenly shut off, and I started to roll backward. I expected this to happen, but it still left me wide-eyed.

I felt as though someone had just performed a magic trick on me. What ought to have triggered panic actually elicited a dumbfounded surprise in me. However, as the car slowly began to roll back down the ramp, surprise turned to alarm as the task of steering backwards without power brakes finally sank in.

This wasn't some glitch triggered by a defective ignition switch, but rather an orchestrated attack performed wirelessly, from the other side of the parking lot, by a security researcher.

In this episode of "Phreaked Out," we met some of the top security researchers at the center of the car hacking world. The goal isn't to make people crash: They highlight security holes in order to highlight flaws in car technology, intended to pressure auto manufacturers to be a few steps ahead of their friendly foes. 

Information security researcher Mathew Solnik gave us a first-hand demonstration on how to wirelessly send commands to the car and remotely tell it what to do. With a little over a grand and about a month of work, http://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-drove-a-car-while-it-was-being-hacked?trk_source=popular