Uber Technologies has hired two top vehicle security researchers, the company said high-profile additions that come as the ride-hailing service ramps up its work on technology for self-driving cars. Charlie Miller, who had been working at Twitter, and Chris Valasek, who worked at security firm IOActive, have resigned from their jobs and will join Uber. Miller and Valasek won wide attention this month after demonstrating that they could hack into a moving Jeep.
Uber said that Miller and Valasek will join the company’s Advanced Technologies Centre, a research laboratory Uber opened in Pittsburgh in February and staffed with dozens of autonomous vehicle experts hired away from Carnegie Mellon University.
An Uber spokeswoman said Miller and Valasek will work with the company’s top security officers “to continue building out a world-class safety and security program at Uber.”
As Uber plunges more deeply into developing or adapting self-driving cars, Miller and Valasek could help the company make that technology more secure.
Uber envisions autonomous cars that could someday replace its hundreds of thousands of contract drivers. The San Francisco company has gone to top-tier universities and research centres to build up this capability.
