Vertical Markets

Keyless theft comment

by Mark Rowe

A security flaw in more than 100 car models including Audi, Fiat, Honda and Volvo has been revealed, despite the research being suppressed for two years by a major manufacturer, comments Anthony Neary, pictured, of The Safe Shop.

The research team, which included Flavio Garcia, a computer scientist at the University of Birmingham and two colleagues from a Dutch University, were unable to release their research due to Volkswagen winning a legal battle in high court to ban the publication. After a series of negotiations, Volkswagen has agreed to the publication of the paper on the basis that one sentence would be removed from the original version.

Now released, the research has revealed several security weaknesses in an immobiliser system which is widely used by car manufacturers, leaving many vehicles open to “keyless theft”. In layman’s terms, the immobiliser system prevents the engine from starting when the key isn’t present. These weaknesses allowed the researchers to listen to signals sent between the security system and key. Once the signal was recorded it was amplified in order to bypass the system, making the vehicle susceptible to wireless attacks. The team go on to explain in the paper that “attacks require close range wireless communication with both the immobiliser unit and the transponder”.

A second report also revealed that the electronic hacking of vehicles is a problem in affluent areas, accounting for 40 per cent of high-end car thefts in London last year. “This is a serious flaw and it’s not very easy to quickly correct,” explained Tim Watson, Director of Cyber Security at the University of Warwick. “It isn’t a theoretical weakness, it’s an actual one and it doesn’t cost theoretical dollars to fix, it costs actual dollars.”

Understandably this creates a very sensitive area for Volkswagen considering that their luxury brands including Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini all use Megamos, the immobiliser tested by Garcia and his team. A Volkswagen spokesman was quoted: “Volkswagen maintains its electronic as well as mechanical security measures technologically up-to-date and also offers innovative technologies in this sector.”

The RAC also commented on the study arguing that electronic security systems have improved car security as vehicle theft has decreased over 70pc in the last 40 years. But despite this, statistics still show that an incident of vehicle crime (theft, interference and damage) is reported to UK police every minute and 21 seconds.

Vehicle vulnerability was also recently tested by research from the University of California, San Diego, who managed to hack a car, activate its windscreen wipers and disable its brakes, all via text message. Fiat Chrysler also recalled 1.4million cars and trucks in July after US hackers took control of a Jeep over the internet.

With these incidences of smart-crime becoming more popular as we get deeper into the digital age, it will be interesting to see what defences car manufacturers can develop to ensure their customers remain safe.

About the author

Anthony Neary is the founder of The Safe Shop and has been working in the security industry for over 10 years. He specialises in home and business security and has experience with regard to safes, locks, alarms and CCTV.

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