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Revealed: car industry was warned keyless vehicles vulnerable to theft a decade ago
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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While my car wasn't stolen, something very similar to this did happen to me. At the time, my wife and I kept our keys by the door. Our tenant did not, opting to keep the keys in her room. Sadly, my cameras didn't catch the person, but you can see their silhouette approach the driveway, then the lights on my wife's and my cars flash (exactly as you describe) before the person entered them and searched them. (This was during lockdown, so we weren't travelling anywhere and so fortunately didn't have anything of value in our car.) Our other friend's car did not open.
I'm not suggesting this is an epidemic or anything, merely that it's possible.
ETA: We only had one copy of our keys each and at no point did they go missing. The police did come to investigate (apparently it happened to at least several people on our street) but we never heard back. Presumably the person was not found.
It's called a relay attack. Thieves just amplify the normally very weak signal and intercept communication. This allows them to unlock the door, and if push start, bypass the immobilizer to start the car. If a key is still required, this doesn't work for starting the car.
The general rule for key fobs is never keep them near the door where the car is parked. Place them on the opposite side of the house. If you want to, some suggestions around the web include making a homemade Faraday box to put your key fob in.
Indeed - nowadays my keys are far from anywhere accessible from the outside. Thanks though!
interesting. Usually they will try to start your car and take off using that signal boosting method.
I think this individual was going for lower hanging fruit (and presumably hoping for lighter consequences if they got caught, though I'm not sure that's what they would have gotten).
In this case, after talking to neighbors, it seemed like they were just going down the street, briefly stopping at each driveway, breaking into whatever cars they could, quickly going through the glove compartment and center console, and stealing anything they perceived to be of value.