The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has formally charged 80 Tesla owners and confiscated 21 computer modification devices after they used illegal third-party hardware to activate the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in models that have not received regulatory approval for operation within the country. This campaign marks the largest of its kind globally against jailbreak tools for automotive networks.
Bypassing Mechanism via CAN Bus
Security investigations revealed that the suspects imported digital modification units from China and Europe or manufactured them locally. One of the suspects, an IT professional, manufactured his own device using source code and instructions published on GitHub. These units rely on direct connection to the Controller Area Network bus (CAN bus) inside the vehicle to bypass regional software locks imposed by Tesla.
The group faces charges of unauthorized modification under the Korean Automobile Management Act, which prohibits any software or hardware changes that compromise vehicle safety. Penalties for these violations include up to two years in prison or a fine of up to 20 million South Korean won (approximately 15,000 US dollars).
Regulatory Complexities Between US and Chinese Factories
The main reason for this phenomenon is the regulatory gap in the Korean market. Authorities permitted the operation of the fully integrated FSD system in late 2025 exclusively on models manufactured in the United States, such as the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck, under the free trade agreement between Washington and Seoul, which exempts these cars from certain local safety tests. In contrast, the Model 3 and Model Y variants—which make up the vast majority of Tesla's fleet in Korea and are imported from the Giga Shanghai plant in China—have not yet obtained the necessary safety approvals.
Official data indicates that approximately 80% to 97% of Tesla cars registered in South Korea are not legally entitled to operate the system, even though many of their owners paid over 6,000 dollars in advance to purchase the full self-driving AI package, expecting it to be activated immediately upon purchase.
Security Enforcement and Technical Response from Tesla
Korean police are currently cooperating with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Transportation Safety Authority to assess technical risks, following proven hazards regarding the system's misreading of road conditions when bypassed illegally. Meanwhile, Tesla began rolling out over-the-air updates starting last April to detect these devices and automatically deactivate the system in modified cars, while notifying owners that they will lose their warranty and bear full criminal and civil liability in the event of any accidents.
Why This News Matters
This development reveals a new security and technical challenge facing software-defined vehicles. When government legislation lags behind features available in the vehicle's hardware, a black market for hardware modification devices emerges. This event puts automakers under responsibility to formulate clear policies to protect internal vehicle networks from hacking, and the necessity of addressing refund requests or regional activation for features that customers pay for without the ability to use them programmatically.