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A New Wireless Hack Can Unlock Almost Every Volkswagen Sold Since 1995 (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the bigtime-nightmare dept.

Volkswagen isn't having the best of times. Tens of millions of vehicles sold by Volkswagen AG over the past 20 years are vulnerable to theft because keyless entry systems can be hacked using cheap technical devices, reports Wired (alternate source). Security experts of the University of Birmingham were able to clone VW remote keyless entry controls by eavesdropping nearby when drivers press their key fobs to open or lock up their cars. ArsTechnica reports: The first affects almost every car Volkswagen has sold since 1995, with only the latest Golf-based models in the clear. Led by Flavio Garcia at the University of Birmingham in the UK, the group of hackers reverse-engineered an undisclosed Volkswagen component to extract a cryptographic key value that is common to many of the company's vehicles. Alone, the value won't do anything, but when combined with the unique value encoded on an individual vehicle's remote key fob -- obtained with a little electronic eavesdropping, say -- you have a functional clone that will lock or unlock that car. VW has apparently acknowledged the vulnerability, and Greenberg (writer at Wired) notes that the company uses a number of different shared values, stored on different components. The second affects many more makes, "including Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, and Peugeot," according to Greenberg. It exploits a much older cryptographic scheme used in key fobs called HiTag2. Again it requires some eavesdropping to capture a series of codes sent out by a remote key fob. Once a few codes had been gathered, they were able to crack the encryption scheme in under a minute.

4 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Re:New tech defeats old tech by sexconker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Keyword: since

  2. Direct link to PDF of research paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The page at Wired requires tons of third-party Javascript and then tries to block ad blockers, so here's a link to the raw PDF:

    https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3010178/Volkswagen-amp-HiTag2-Keyless-Entry-System.pdf

  3. Re:this is why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    In the U.S., cars will unlock with the mechanical motion of pulling the handle from the inside or must have the ability to be unlocked mechanically without electrical power. It's an NHTSA requirement for safety.

  4. Re:this is why by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, power windows and locks are great, until you drive into water, short out the electrical system, and are trapped inside the car. Rule of thumb: EVERY automatic system should have a manual backup! (To BMW's credit, their electric sunroof comes with a crank handle that can be used to close the sunroof when the electric motor fails. Not sure how many other manufacturers do this.)

    Well, you can do the ObMythbusters who tested exactly that and found... it still works great, even after being submerged for 45 minutes.

    Or you can realize that it's pretty waterproof as it is, otherwise they'd short out in a moderate rainstorm - battery being in the engine compartment and getting wet, and the doors getting water inside of them too.

    No, what really prevents the windows from opening is water pressure - and even a manual crank is too weak to open a window in a fully submerged car.