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Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

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Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#301

Post by tedunangst »

gnicholas wrote: post #181
HorizonXP wrote: post #72

This happened to a family member of mine, here in Toronto. Lost their gorgeous M5. Their kid normally wakes up in the middle of the night, except this time, he freaked right out like he was scared. They were wondering what was going on with him, when one of the parents heard the M5 turn on (it's pretty distinct). "That's my car!" His wife said, "Naw, you're crazy, no way." Sure enough, enough, key fob attack and thef…

> If I were the insurance companies, I'd be putting pressure on the car companies And also give car owners an incentive to keep their keys safer, given how many vehicles out there are vulnerable to this. Just fixing this for new cars is only half the solution. I remember back in the 80s my parents got a discount on their insurance for installing a third brake light in the back window of their old Camaro. If my insura…

It's unclear how the insurance company would verify you're using the faraday cage. Presumably you're not willing to accept responsibility for the loss.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#302

Post by justtopost »

stri8ed wrote: post #297
HorizonXP wrote: post #72

This happened to a family member of mine, here in Toronto. Lost their gorgeous M5. Their kid normally wakes up in the middle of the night, except this time, he freaked right out like he was scared. They were wondering what was going on with him, when one of the parents heard the M5 turn on (it's pretty distinct). "That's my car!" His wife said, "Naw, you're crazy, no way." Sure enough, enough, key fob attack and thef…

What are the thief's doing with these cars?

Selling parts. Usually chop shops, then to shady body shops and mechanics. With exotics, many are exported to less principled markets, with minimal vin mitigation needed. Notice how the top stolen cars on every annual list are always ones with popular body styles (accord, etc), it is no accident. The parts are often worth more than the car, and can be sold at full market value, unlike a stolen car.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#303

Post by zitterbewegung »

nkrisc wrote: post #105

I imagine improvements to the key fob could be made that would require a mechanical coupling with the car in order to start it. That would circumvent this attack.

Or putting the key fob in a metal container.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#304

Post by mrb »

jwr wrote: post #124
mrb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« it should be absolutely trivial to detect how far away the key is based on the response time » It's not possible. A keyfob has a relatively slow R/F communication channel, less than 1 Mbit/s (at best) because it's constrained by power. Thus the "length" of a bit transmitted over the air is 300 meters or more. The receiver needs to demodulate "300 meters" of R/F signal to recover a single bit. A difference of +/- 10…

It is absolutely possible. As I wrote elsewhere in the comments, you need to use radios with timestamping that can measure the distance (10cm accuracy is achievable). See for example Decawave DW1000 radios. Use those and you can base your distance estimation on time measurement, rather than signal strength. Amplifiers won't help.

Nope, DW1000 can't work in an adversarial scenario.

Their ranging algorithm critically depends on the receiver time-stamping the "leading edge" of the first bit of the first byte of the PHY header. This bit is either always 0 or always 1 (it's part of the 802.15.4 data rate field), so an attacker can easily cheat by preemptively sending a 0 or a 1 just before the signal booster can relay the first legitimate bit from the keyfob. This legitimate bit will be received (by the booster) while the preemptive bit is still being transmitted, so the booster can smoothly transition to sending the subsequent legitimate bits, and the receiver will have been completely fooled that the keyfob is nearby.

DW1000 is nice but it only works in scenarios where both transmitters and receivers are being honest to each other.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#305

Post by brewdad »

abecedarius wrote: post #263
burfog wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please yes. Traditional keys fit on my keyring, can survive the clothes washer, don't unlock doors by accident, can open a car with a dead battery, don't have their own battery issues, and can be brought into restricted work environments where radio transmitters are banned. I want key holes in all doors. I want to insert a key to start the car.

OTOH keys can be cloned from a photo nowadays, so I gather.

My local Lowes store offers key duplication via digital image as a service. You do need to insert the physical key but the machine creates a digital image for cutting the duplicate.

https://www.minutekey.com/

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#306

Post by decebalus1 »

burfog wrote: post #227
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, let's put the burden back on the user after we promised them something easier. We should just go back to traditional keys if this is the case.

Please yes. Traditional keys fit on my keyring, can survive the clothes washer, don't unlock doors by accident, can open a car with a dead battery, don't have their own battery issues, and can be brought into restricted work environments where radio transmitters are banned. I want key holes in all doors. I want to insert a key to start the car.

My fancy wireless fob/key has a 'hardware' fallback which I absolutely adore. If you click a very well hidden button, the fob separates exposing a plain old metal old-timey key ready to be used.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#307

Post by lozaning »

jjeaff wrote: post #275
Scoundreller wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW late 2000s were like this. Maybe still are.

I have a 2007 BMW. It does have a slot to insert the fob. But it is not required to start or run the car. The slot acts as a charger and holder for the fob. But proximity is all that is actually needed.

Sounds like you've got the comfort access package on your car. Without that tech package (sadly not offered on my make and model year) you've got to actually put the fob into the slot to make the push to start work.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#308

Post by jules »

blattimwind wrote: post #133
jules wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you stop the car if the key is not present in the car? I guess the thieves could fake it with long distance transmission of the signal, but that would be more difficult and the further the car drives away from the actual key, the easier if becomes to detect the timing delay.

No. Safety-wise you can't just shut the engine off and lock the steering because the RF connection to some keyfob is wonky. These thefts have been going on for years and they will not stop until key-less go is dropped or changed such that the key requires interaction (like every higher security transponder has for, like, always).

Obviously you would not use that absurd shutdown procedure. You'd give a warning and tell the driver that the engine is going to shut off in X minutes, and after X minutes you decrease its max speed to 10 km/h for Y minutes before shutting down completely. Cars already do way more dangerous stuff if you assume that arbitrary components fail.

It also depends on the reliability. You could also say that you can't just shut the engine off if the electrical contact in the keyhole is wonky.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#309

Post by gnicholas »

tedunangst wrote: post #301
gnicholas wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were the insurance companies, I'd be putting pressure on the car companies And also give car owners an incentive to keep their keys safer, given how many vehicles out there are vulnerable to this. Just fixing this for new cars is only half the solution. I remember back in the 80s my parents got a discount on their insurance for installing a third brake light in the back window of their old Camaro. If my insura…

It's unclear how the insurance company would verify you're using the faraday cage. Presumably you're not willing to accept responsibility for the loss.

Sure, this wouldn't mean I'm responsible for any theft of my vehicle, just that it would reduce the likelihood that it would happen — benefiting both the insurer and insured.

The companies could even give away nice-looking faraday boxes that cost them next to nothing to make, and which would probably have decent adoption among people who have requested them. That would cut the hard costs to be very low, and give them a branding/perception benefit.

Imagine seeing "Mercury Insurance is giving away a Fob Box to any customer who wants one." It wouldn't make me switch to Mercury, but it would make me think more highly of them. And if I were just out of college and choosing my first insurance company, I'd undoubtedly choose them.

Given the spate of thefts and the likelihood that it continues, a promo like this could resonate for a long time and get mentioned in lots of news stories.

Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles

#310

Post by [deleted] »

r00fus wrote: post #145
jamescostian wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if this is a joke about old keys being better, but I'd argue you could have the benefits of new keys and old keys combined if you just made it so that new keys have to be inserted into some compartment inside of cars, where they are authenticated by those cars. You can imagine a fob with a USB that has a different authentication code than the wireless one it sends out, and unless the USB is plugged into…

Does this not sound exactly like what I had back in the 90s where my physical key would need to be inserted to start the vehicle and to unlock I'd press the keyfob to activate the unlocking. I imagine an smartphone with touch sensor + car remote app would be even safer than what we have now.

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