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Revealed: car industry was warned keyless vehicles vulnerable to theft a decade ago
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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I think most of the wireless attacks aren't trying to be so sophisticated. They target cars parked at home and use a relay attack that uses a repeater antenna to rebroadcast the signal from the car to the fob inside and vice versa, tricking the car into thinking the fob is nearby. Canada has seen a large spike in this kind of attack. Faraday pouches that you put the fob inside of at home mitigates the attack.
So does not leaving your keys by the front door… not that I follow my own advice :-)
Yeah. Shockingly people store things where it is convenient to have them. :) I'm glad I didn't have a keyless system to with about.
I’m just banking on my car being the least fancy in my complex ;-)
Keyless entry sounds stupid and I’ve totally mocked people for being “to lazy to turn a key.” But pushbutton start makes my slow little Subaru feel like a race car :-)
By keyless entry they don't mean key fobs with buttons you press to unlock. They mean key fobs on cars with a proximity sensor where you can open the door without taking the key out of your pocket.
Relay attacks don't need the key to be in close proximity, they can be read from almost anywhere in the house if they aren't in a faraday pouch or microwave. Have you seen the size of the antennas these attacks use?
Also a microwave isn’t a good Faraday cage… at least not mine ;-)
I’ve seen a few low res clips over the years… one did use a yagi (Christmas tree looking one?). I’m sure it’s possible, but I don’t think it’s actually a given. I’m not even expert adjacent on this one though 😅
The more recent ones I've seen are pretty funny. It's usually two people with a relay kit: one carrying a massive flexible loop antenna, posing like a starfish walking around the front of the property, and the other beside the vehicle with a wireless keyfob emulator.
Sadly not so funny for the car owners though, AFAIK the vehicles usually end up being broken down into parts. In Canada it's a little different, they seem to be immediately driven to a port and loaded onto a ship for export.
I don't believe this is possible on older cars though, just ones with keyless start. Except if you have a US-spec Kia... where you literally just rip out the lock cylinder and use a USB cable to turn the engine start switch, although I believe they've fitted immobilizers to those now