Your Car Is Spying on You – and Israeli Firms Are Leading the Surveillance Race

In recent decades, our cars have become smart devices, a collection of computers on wheels with dozens of digital systems; the vehicle cannot properly function without an internet or cellular connection. Though this vastly improves the driving experience, it also severely risks privacy and has become a national security threat.

In the intelligence industry, such information derived from vehicles is known as CARINT, car intelligence. A Haaretz investigation has found that at least three Israeli companies are currently operating in CARINT; one has developed an “offensive” tool that can potentially tap into your car’s microphones and cameras.

Three years ago, Haaretz revealed the existence of the offensive cyber intelligence company Toka, which was co-founded by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and a former Israel Defense Forces cyber chief, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yaron Rosen. The firm specialized in hacking into security cameras, but as documents obtained by Haaretz at the time revealed, Toka also had a product called CARINT that fused camera data with data linked to cars.

At the time, the industry was in its infancy. But industry sources say that Toka has since expanded its offering on cars. It has developed and even sold a product capable of hacking into a specific vehicle’s multimedia systems, pinpointing its location and tracking its movements; that is, a specific model by a specific manufacturer. The technology can even remotely access the microphone of the vehicle’s hands-free system, allowing eavesdropping on the driver, and even tap into cameras installed on the dashboard or around the car.

The Defense Ministry approved the product, allowing it to be presented to several potential clients, and authorized its eventual sale. The company said in response for this article: “As part of our product road map for 2026, we no longer sell this product.”

Sources say AI-driven ‘data fusion’ is so effective that there is little reason to try to hack into cars. Still, for years, ethical hackers, cyber security researchers and firms have warned about the growing privacy risk of the digitization of cars.

The Israeli cyber-intelligence firm Rayzone has also begun selling a vehicle surveillance tool, albeit one that only tracks cars. The product is sold alongside an array of products for collecting and cross-referencing data harvested from various sources. Haaretz previously revealed that Rayzone had developed a groundbreaking tool enabling the tracking and identification of targets based on advertising data that is commercially available online, exposing the targets without needing to hack into a device.

Rayzone’s new CARINT product is sold by its new subsidiary TA9, a reference to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Marketing brochures obtained by Haaretz show that the new CARINT tool feeds the data it can collect from a car into a system that provides Rayzone’s clients with “full intelligence coverage” of the target under surveillance. The vehicle is just one of many data points being tracked by the firm.

By analyzing location data and travel patterns, the technology allows governments to track targets using the SIM cards installed in the car while monitoring the vehicle’s wireless and Bluetooth communications. The tech also cross-references with roadside cameras to identify license plates and other data possessed by government agencies. This is part of a wider trend in which cyber intelligence firms are “fusing” data, not just collecting it.

A page from a brochure for the Israeli company Rayzone.

From Palantir to China

Modern cars feature a raft of computerized components that allow manufacturers remote oversight of critical systems, from braking to airbags. Built-in SIM cards provide constant connectivity for navigation, multimedia and features like remote starting of the engine – and that’s even before mentioning GPS systems and the systems connecting directly to our smartphones.

In response, vehicle intelligence has become a growing focus of intelligence and law enforcement agencies. In the United States, the FBI and National Security Agency often ask vehicle manufacturers for data, akin to requests for data on phones or email made with big tech companies like Apple and Google. The federal authorities might be wondering who is the person behind a specific email, phone number or social media account.

The buzz phrase this year was of course artificial intelligence, and at the conferences, dozens of systems for processing big data and fusing multiple sources of intelligence were showcased. These programs have long existed, but with the help of AI they’re now capable of processing millions of unrelated data points. This includes vast amounts of video and audio, turning them into actionable intelligence insight at a speed and efficiency once thought impossible.

“When you work with intelligence agencies, the amount of data they have is enormous. So real-time data fusion is the name of the game,” an Israeli salesperson said at a recent ISS expo.

AI has reinvigorated intel tech by reviving the potential of data sources once thought to be too big and boring to be relevant. Vehicle intelligence is the perfect example.

Alongside Toka and Rayzone, the conference showcased another CARINT player, Ateros, the new AI-driven sister company of Netline, an Israeli firm that has developed intelligence technology for militaries and government agencies for more than two decades.

Experts say that exploiting vulnerabilities in vehicles is challenging. “Every car is unique; the systems inside it are different from each other and communicate differently.” Credit: Joshua A. Bickel,AP

Ateros’ main product, GeoDome, can interface with government systems, among them those that identify license plates, and cross-reference them with data collected by more classic means like cellular communications and other government-linked capabilities. The system can interface with Netline’s signals-intelligence product Onyx, which can also collect intelligence “from internet-connected vehicles.”

One of the many Netline sensors that feed Ateros’ intelligence products can be found in the tire. Each tire has a unique identifier that continuously transmits pressure data to the car’s central processor. This creates a kind of fingerprint that Ateros’ system uses to identify a specific vehicle. The joint offering by Ateros and Netline is as much about AI-driven data fusion as it is about data collection.

This marks an industry shift away from highly invasive and bespoke surveillance systems like those produced by Israel’s NSO Group or Paragon Solutions that can hack encrypted phones – the rage of recent years.

Still, Netline’s and Rayzone’s vehicle intelligence products are regulated by the Defense Ministry. While their tools “merely” monitor the systems that connect us to our car, Toka has developed an offensive capability: finding security vulnerabilities that let clients remotely hack into multimedia systems that include a microphone and cameras.

But experts say that exploiting vulnerabilities in vehicles is challenging. “Every car is unique; the systems inside it are different from each other and communicate differently. A Tesla doesn’t work exactly like a Skoda, and if you managed to hack into one it’s irrelevant to the other,” one researcher says.

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According to industry sources, this is probably why Toka stopped selling the hacking product. Moreover, sources say, AI-driven data fusion is so effective that there is little reason to try to hack into cars.

Still, for years, ethical hackers, cyber security researchers and firms have warned about the growing privacy risk of the digitization of cars.

The vast amount of data that vehicles transmit also poses a security risk. It is already possible to try to identify all vehicle owners who regularly park near a military or intelligence base using tools like ad-based intelligence and other “open source” data. These sources are now available to anyone online – again, thanks to AI.<

Though not yet the case in the DefenseTech market, hackers have demonstrated how they can gain full control of a car, including the ability to remotely steer or stop the engine.

Hackers who sell to governments say that clients are increasingly asking for such capabilities. “Countries don’t just want to locate vehicles, they also want the ability to disable them remotely,” one source says. The more digital our cars become, the greater the physical threat will be.
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