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Secret Kill Switch Found In Yutong Buses
Norwegian engineers found an unexpected feature in Yutong buses - a bus can be stopped remotely via the internet.
(Yutong bus)
Ruter, the transit authority for Oslo, suspected something was up. They suspected their new fleet of Yutong electric buses was more connected than advertised. To test it out, they needed a “silent” environment. So they went to the Franzefoss Mine to test a newly delivered Yutong bus from China and a three-year-old model from Dutch manufacturer, VDL.The rock walls of the mine acted as a massive Faraday cage, blocking all external signals — GPS, 4G, 5G. In this Faraday cage, engineers monitored the vehicle’s attempts to communicate.
The bus was trying to phone home.
The engineers discovered a pre-installed SIM card, roaming on a Romanian network, actively transmitting data. The SIM card was a two-way street, allowing for Over-the-Air (OTA) updates, a standard industry technology that lets manufacturers patch software remotely. But the access went deeper than the infotainment system. Ruter found the connection linked to the Battery Management System (BMS). This is the vehicle’s heart. If you control the BMS, you don’t need to steer the bus to crash it. You just tell the battery to go to sleep.
Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke thought about the problem of kill switches in his 1982 film 2010: Odyssey Two:
"What is it?" asked Curnow with mild distaste, hefting the little mechanism in his hand. "A guillotine for mice?"
(The killswitch from 2010 movie)"Not a bad description - but I'm after bigger game." Floyd pointed to a flashing arrow on the display screen, which was now showing a complicated circuit diagram.
"You see this line?"
"Yes - the main power supply. So?"
"This is the point where it enters Hal's central processing unit. I'd like you to install this gadget here. Inside the cable trunking, where it can't be found without a deliberate search."
Science fiction author Keith Laumer had a similar idea in his 1965 novel A Plague of Demons:
I nudged the car into motion, steering between the two wide-shouldered, lean-hipped trouble boys. One whipped out a three-inch black disc - a police control-override. A red light blinked on the dash; the car faltered as the external command came to brake.
(Read more about Laumer's police control-override)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/5/2025)
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