JUST imagine you are driving your car on a favourite stretch of road. It's a perfect day, the sun is shining, the roads are quiet and you are driving well within yourself.

Up ahead the ribbon of tarmac snakes left and right, but the visibility is good and you know the route like the back of your hand. You drop a gear and accelerate into the bend, anticipating the exhilaration of carving through the bends. What could possibly go wrong?

The first hint of trouble comes when the radio switches on by itself and your driving equilibrium is upset by a blast of heavy metal at full volume. Seconds later the windscreen wipers start up, the rubber screeching on the dry glass like fingernails down a blackboard.

But that is only the beginning... as you fiddle with the audio volume and grope for the wipers stalk, the engine revs rise unexpectedly and the car accelerates far too fast for the next bend. You hit the brakes only to realise, too late, that someone has disabled the pedal and you are approaching a crash barrier with no hope of slowing down.

Your motoring nirvana has turned into a nightmare; your car has been hacked and someone else, sat with a laptop many miles away, is driving.

Sounds like science fiction? Guess again. Last week Fiat Chrysler recalled more than a million vehicles for a software update after two hackers were able to remotely take control of a Jeep Cherokee. The hackers were able to turn on the radio and the air conditioning, interfere with the engine and cut the brakes. The guinea pig behind the wheel ended up in a ditch.

How was it done?

They were able to hack into the wireless technology normally used to link up with a smartphone. Once they were in the system, the hack gave them access to all the major systems including the engine management and the brakes.

What's affected?

The recall affects vehicles with 8.4-inch touchscreens including 2013 to 2015 Ram pickups and chassis cabs and Dodge Viper sports cars. Also covered are 2014 and 2015 Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee and Cherokee SUVs, as well as the 2015 Chrysler 200 and 300, and the Dodge Charger and Challenger. NO vehicles sold in the UK are affected.

However, the men behind the hack say this may not be an isolated problem. Prior to the Cherokee attack they broke into a Ford and a Toyota. However, these hacks required a physical connection to the cars - the Cherokee attack was more dangerous because it was a wireless connection.

And with more and more cars adding smartphone connectivity and wi-fi hotspot functionality vehicle manufacturers will have to come up with new ways of defending their systems from hackers.

So should we be worried?

Not yet. The hackers behind this attack have been working with Chrysler Fiat to find a solution and no vehicles from the UK are believed to be at risk.

But the attack is undoubtedly a wake-up call for all car manufacturers.