Technology is often taken for granted in everyday life with most of us not even giving a second thought to the semi autonomous world we live in. But look beyond the veneer of led screens and gesture control and you might find that all is not what it seems.
While the convenience of the latest tech is great, inevitably there are those in society who will look to take advantage of weaknesses in the tech used by car manufacturers to benefit their own ends.
Keyless entry and ignition is a great example of this as on the one hand it offers huge convenience for the end user while on the other it provides a security loophole which allows your pride and joy to be stolen in seconds. The result of this is a continued rise in vehicle theft of 8% since March 2017 according to data published by the ONS though the rate of increase appears to be slowing and remains well below the rates of vehicle crime seen in the 1990's.
Of course we’re not going to give up the convenience of such technology, as a society we like the easy way of doing things so we need to adapt to new threats as individuals while also putting more pressure in vehicle manufacturers to up their game.
In the case of keyless entry, the simplest way to prevent what is known as “relay theft” is to place you car keys in a tin, foil bag or other metal box when not using them. This acts as a “faraday cage” blocking the wireless signals from being transmitted.
Of course this is a great work around but there is a bigger issue here, vehicles shouldn’t be allowed to go on sale to the general public using vulnerable technologies, the ultimate consequence of which isn’t just theft but the potential for someone to take control of your vehicle while you’re driving.
But what are these other threats though and should we really be concerned? For me, much of this boils down to the development lifecycle of a car being several years, during which time computer technology and systems develop, change and become obsolete yet manufacturers seem to ignore this by neglecting to patch or update software.
Unfortunately if you already own a vulnerable car there’s probably not much you can do apart from requesting software updates from the vehicle manufacturer. Issues like tyre sensors can only be resolved by the manufacturers so for the time being at least we’re in their hands.
Common Threats Hackers Use
- Keyless car theft - relay
- Keyless car theft - jamming
- Displaying false readings on tyre pressure monitors
- Insecure vehicle wifi can expose a number of systems
- Telematics
- CAN bus
- On board diagnostics
- Phising
