How Do Thieves Steal Your Vehicle and How Can You Protect Your Car?
New technology gives new opportunities for thieves. Today’s vehicles are key-less and rely on fobs to open, start, and drive away. But criminals are now able to do this without the fob—using a commercially available software tool which can be bought on the open internet.
So how are cars being stolen? And how can you protect your vehicle?
What Security Measures Does Your Car Key Fob Have?
Keyless entry and ignition mean there’s no need to fumble with a lock on an icy morning, or even remove the fob from your pocket and press a button. Just walk up to your vehicle, open the door, and start motoring.
Of course, keyless cars need to have some sort of security measures to prevent unauthorized persons from making off with your vehicle. Traditionally, this has been managed by rolling codes which supposedly make your vehicle unstealable.
Flaws in this system have long been apparent. Fobs can be cloned with a minimum of effort by anyone with a Linux laptop, aSoftware Defined Radio (SDR), and a bit of know-how. This type of attack is known as “relay theft”, and merely requires a thief to get their equipment to within a few feet of the fob, clone the signal, and transmit it to the vehicle.
While this will get the doors open, the shifting nature of the cipher means that thieves will be unable to start the vehicle—at least for very long. To successfully steal the vehicle, thieves would, in most cases, need to disable the immobilizer system or program a new key via the vehicle’s OBD port. So while getting away with your stereo and collection of CDs may be fairly trivial, Gone in 60 Seconds has been, until recently, a fantasy.
How Criminals Can Reprogram Your Car and Drive Away
In October 2022, French, Spanish, and Latvian authorities, in cooperation withEuropoland Eurojust “dismantled a car theft ring which used a fraudulent software to steal vehicles without using the physical key fob.”
The tool, which was marketed as anautomotive diagnostic solution, is remarkable in that it replaces the original vehicle software “allowing the doors to be opened and the ignition to be started without the actual key fob.”
In effect, if this happens to you, your car now belongs to the criminals who stole it— it’s as easy for them to operate as it would be for you.
The software, which has not been named, is available to buy through commercial online outlets, meaning that while the operation was initiated by the French Gendarmerie’s Cybercrime Centre, cars are at risk regardless of where they are in the world. The agency has disseminated “intelligence packages to all the countries affected by this crime”.
Europol has indicated that the criminals targeted vehicles from two unspecified French car manufacturers, but did not specifically state that other marques were not at risk.
How Can You Protect Your Keyless Car From Thieves?
Without a list of vulnerable vehicles, it’s impossible to say which keyless entry and ignition vehicles are at risk. It’s safer to assume that yours is one of them. There are some simple and cost-effective ways which can help ensure that your car stays exactly where you left it.
Any electronic system accessible from outside can be hacked. Use physical security instead. Such measures include:
Your Car Is Easy to Steal
Keyless cars were supposed to make life easier and more seamless. Instead, you now need to worry about them making life easier for thieves. Physical security devices rather undermine the point of keyless cars: they’re cumbersome, ugly, and time-consuming. Regardless, if you want to make sure your car isn’t stolen, they’re a necessity. In the event your car is stolen, make sure you have a handy record of its particulars, including registration and VIN.
It pays to keep track of your VIN. You never know when you might need it!
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