As cars evolve into rolling mobile computers, the potential for disastrous cyber attacks has become a new road hazard, experts have warned this week at the biggest electronics show of the year.

Israeli cybersecurity firm GuardKnox demonstrated the threat in a driving simulation at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week by remotely taking control of a speeding car's steering wheel so the driver had no command over the direction the vehicle was travelling.

They warned that opportunities for attacks are being revved up by the introduction of self-driving tech, electric cars communicating in real-time with the cloud, smart city infrastructures, and one another - turning the next generation of vehicles into 'moving targets' for hackers.

'Moving targets': Cybersecurity experts have warned that the increasing number of connected vehicles entering the road could be susceptible to disastrous cyber attacks

Moments into the live demonstration at CES, a GuardKnox engineer playing the role of hacker struck and the steering wheel no longer controlled the car.

The faux race was over for the driver, stuck on the side of the road in a scenario that cybersecurity specialists say could become very real.

GuardKnox chief executive Moshe Shlisel gave another example of a hacker remotely taking control of a fuel tanker truck, forcing it to crash into a building.

Concerns are rife in some parts of the industry that the security levels on new car models packed with computer chips, sensors and mobile technology can easily be exploited by hackers who could sabotage systems or commandeer controls.

By the end of the year there's expected to be a quarter of a billion connected cars worldwide, many of which could be susceptible to security and safety threats.

'It's September 11 on wheels,' Shlisel said in an interview at CES.

Cybersecurity has become as integral to vehicle engineering as crash safety and fuel efficiency, according to Henry Bzeih, a former member of the Council for Automobile Cybersecurity, who spoke at the Las Vegas event.

'Connectivity is the reason why this is happening,' Bzeih said.

'Now, all elements have to be designed with cybersecurity in mind.'

Experts at CES in Las Vegas warned that opportunities for attacks are being revved up by the introduction of self-driving tech, electric cars communicating in real-time with the cloud, smart city infrastructures, and one another

Israeli startup Upstream said it logged more than 150 cybersecurity incidents involving automobiles last year, twice as many as in 2018.

The majority of those hacks involve remotely car door locks, but an increasing number targeted software applications or connections to the cloud.

In a poll carried out last year, 84 per cent of cybersecurity experts quizzed said automotive manufacturers weren't keeping pace with hacking threats - and there's been plenty of evidence of this.

The most famous of all came in 2015 in the US when an experiment showed how easy it was to take control of a connected vehicle using a laptop.

Hackers crashed a Jeep Cherokee into a ditch by remotely breaking into its systems from 10 miles away whilst sitting on their sofa.

In the first such breach of its kind, the security experts cut out the engine and applied the brakes on the SUV - sending it into a spin.

The US hackers said they used just a computer and mobile phone to access the Jeep’s on-board systems via its wireless Internet connection.

There have been recent examples of cyber hacks on vehicles as concerns gain momentum that security systems in place are not enough to prevent skilled computer operators from infiltrating cars remotely

More recently, a team of security researchers successfully hacked a Tesla Model 3 to show a message on its entertainment system.

The team infiltrated the electric car's infotainment settings as part of the annual Pwn2Own computer hacking contest, winning the £40,000 vehicle as a prize and a hefty reward of $35,000 from Tesla - which quickly released a software update to address the vulnerability the team uncovered.

While no life-threatening cyber attacks on vehicles have yet to be reported, insiders believe there is potential just around the corner.

And with more and more personal data and financial transactions being stored in vehicles, cars are becoming valuable targets from thieves.

'The ultimate worst-case scenario would be if somebody applies one of the car functions when it's not supposed to do that, and does that across multiple vehicles,' said Upstream vice president Dan Sahar.

'For example, someone hits the brakes on all vehicles of a specific model at the same time. That would be catastrophic.'

Since cars in model lines share engineering specifications, they share system vulnerabilities by design.

'If you can design an attack and execute it on a computer, and that computer is attached to a car, anything is possible,' said Ralph Echemendia, expert in cybersecurity and self-described 'ethical hacker.'

Five years ago, a pair of cybersecurity researches remotely commandeered the controls of a Jeep Cherokee by taking advantage of a vulnerability in its infotainment system, triggering a recall of vehicles.

By the end of the year there's expected to be a quarter of a billion connected cars worldwide, many of which could be susceptible to security and safety threats

Carmakers have responded to the menace by offering bounties for vulnerabilities found by researchers and paying partners to build security into components.

Upstream collects data shared to the cloud by vehicles, scouring it in real time for strange activity that could signal hackers are up to no good.

GuardKnox engineers drew on their experience in the Israeli air force to design a processor that protects computers in vehicles and also serves as a secure operating system.

As in the world of smartphones and desktop computing, hackers relentlessly seek ways to infiltrate new software or features in automobiles in an ever-escalating battle with defenders.