Hacker shut down 100 TX cars remotely

AUSTIN (KXAN) - More than 100 Austin car buyers had their vehicles disabled or triggered to continuously honk after police said a former employee hacked into the company’s account.

Police said the terminated Texas Auto Center employee accessed the computer system to disable the online account that allows the company to deactivate the starters and activate the horns and GPS of many of the vehicles.

The company said they had more than 80 customers who complained they lost work, missed school or complained of towing expenses and vehicle repairs.

Police arrested Omar Ramos-Lopez, 20, charged with breach of computer security.

Austin Police Department High-Tech Crimes Unit detectives said they were contacted by Texas Auto Center at 8113 S. I-35 on March 4 after they said Ramos-Lopez accessed their Pay Technologies account.

The company said he had deactivated the starter system in many vehicles that they financed and caused the horns to honk throughout the night, even if customers were up to date on their loans.
Luzianne Garza bought her car a year ago and is one of those impacted.

"It wouldn’t even click over,” said Garza. “Nothing would come on. Ii call my boyfriend I say my car don’t want to turn on he comes out and he’s trying to check it but doesn’t find anything wrong with it."

Manager Joe Estrada said it took a couple days for them to figure out these systems had been triggered in the cars.

"The biggest part was on Friday when he did most of it because Saturday we were just getting bombarded with phone calls,” said Estrada. "Customer names were deleted and changed to Tupac that kind of stuff."

Police said former collection agent Omar Ramos Lopez hacked into the pay technologies computer system a month after he was fired.

"Detective Lucas was able to obtain a subpena from AT&T and they traced the ip address back to his residence,” said Sergeant Keith Bazzle, Austin Police Department.

By then more than 100 of their 2,300 customers cars wouldn't start or their horns would honk uncontrollably and there was no rhyme or reason to who was targeted.

"People that have actually been ahead on their payments were impacted,” said Estrada.

Luzianne Garza’s car was hit twice between March 2nd and 4th. She almost had it towed but then remembered the car salesman telling her about the device installed so she called the dealership.

“They said well your cars been turned off,” said Garza.

Estrada said he had to let Ramos Lopez go because his driving record was not good enough for the company’s insurance to accept.

Ramos Lopez faces between 120 days to two years in the state jail if convicted.