Tech

Jeep hacker: I'm more afraid of texting and driving

Hacking cars in motion
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Hacking cars in motion

One of the security researchers who hacked into a Jeep's computer system said that, although the threat of hijacked cars is real, he is more afraid of other things.

"I'm more afraid of someone texting and driving and running into me than I am of someone hacking my car," Chris Valasek told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Wednesday.

Valasek, director of vehicle security research at IOActive, was part of a team that conducted a controlled experiment to hack into the vehicle and crash it.

Read More Hackers remotely kill Jeep's engine on highway

Valasek said he was able to connect to the Jeep over 3G data, take over the entertainment system and then reprogram different chips in the car in order to control its physical attributes. "So we were able to hack it remotely," he said.

The research was three years in the making and it took researchers one full year to hack into the Jeep car specifically. "We want to raise awareness," he said. "Manufacturers are now taking software security more seriously, and we are helping them move forward, so hopefully we have done our job and we can help people make more secure products."

He added that new features in cars are a good thing and that they "have more safety than they do a method to attack you."

—CNBC's Zack Guzman contributed to this report.