--- title: Self-driving cars, drones hijacked by custom road signs description: Researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins demonstrated that autonomous vehicles and drones can be hijacked through environmental prompt injection attacks... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/self-driving-cars-drones-hijacked-by-custom-road-signs-fehi3msia twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Self-driving cars, drones hijacked by custom road signs | daily.dev og:description: Researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins demonstrated that autonomous vehicles and drones can be hijacked through environmental prompt injection attacks... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/self-driving-cars-drones-hijacked-by-custom-road-signs-fehi3msia og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Fehi3msia.png og:image:alt: Self-driving cars, drones hijacked by custom road signs og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Self-driving cars, drones hijacked by custom road signs **[The Register](https://daily.dev/sources/theregister)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins demonstrated that autonomous vehicles and drones can be hijacked through environmental prompt injection attacks using modified road signs. Large vision language models (LVLMs) like GPT-4o and InternVL were tricked into following malicious commands displayed on signs, achieving success rates up to 95.5% in simulated tests. The attacks, called CHAI (Command Hijacking Against Embodied AI), worked across multiple languages and were validated in real-world physical tests with remote-controlled cars. The vulnerability could cause self-driving cars to ignore pedestrians or drones to misidentify targets, highlighting critical security gaps in AI-powered autonomous systems. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Schneier on Security](https://daily.dev/posts/schneier-on-security-oucth2tej) · Schneier on Security · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hackers can turn Grok, Copilot into covert command-and-control channels, researchers warn](https://daily.dev/posts/hackers-can-turn-grok-copilot-into-covert-command-and-control-channels-researchers-warn-cjqovjm5t) · CSO Online · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI systems are fully capable of carrying out nightmare attacks against infrastructure and nobody's ready](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-systems-are-fully-capable-of-carrying-out-nightmare-attacks-against-infrastructure-and-nobody-s-r-aamabpu5e) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#computer-vision](https://daily.dev/tags/computer-vision), [#prompt-injection](https://daily.dev/tags/prompt-injection) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/self-driving-cars-drones-hijacked-by-custom-road-signs-fehi3msia) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Self-driving cars, drones hijacked by custom road signs","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/self-driving-cars-drones-hijacked-by-custom-road-signs-fehi3msia","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/self-driving-cars-drones-hijacked-by-custom-road-signs-fehi3msia"},"datePublished":"2026-01-30T14:31:19.486Z","dateModified":"2026-01-30T14:31:44.022Z","description":"Researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins demonstrated that autonomous vehicles and drones can be hijacked through environmental prompt injection attacks...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a3bb6078058fad13a0338146005eb291?_a=AQAEulh","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a3bb6078058fad13a0338146005eb291?_a=AQAEulh","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Register","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Register","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/66aa2113fdad463992ffcbf0e8963fda","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/theregister"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/self-driving-cars-drones-hijacked-by-custom-road-signs-fehi3msia","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai,security,computer-vision,prompt-injection","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Register","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/theregister"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Self-driving cars, drones hijacked by custom road signs"}]} ```