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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

#91

Post by hasbot »

ghaff wrote: post #25
gregmac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With my car, as soon as you touch the door handle (with the keyfob in your pocket, or within a couple feet of the door) it unlocks, and to start the car you push a button. It doesn't work from even 4' away (eg, someone else touches the door handle while you're close) and it doesn't work from the other side (eg, when the keyfob close enough to driver's side door, the passenger side won't unlock). The really nice featu…

>so at least half of the time when I am driving it I forget and leave it unlocked in parking lots This is the problem with a lot of the newer tech in cars like backup alarms. You become used to various features in your own car and when you rent a car you need to consciously remember that the vehicle doesn't have $FEATURE. Effectively, cars are becoming a lot less standardized. A car I rented a few weeks ago beeped at…

It's a problem going the other way too. I drive an older vehicle and rented a car. I nearly had to ask the attendant how to start the car. Then I was entirely surprised when I stopped at a light and the engine turned off.

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

#92

Post by ghaff »

hasbot wrote: post #91
ghaff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so at least half of the time when I am driving it I forget and leave it unlocked in parking lots This is the problem with a lot of the newer tech in cars like backup alarms. You become used to various features in your own car and when you rent a car you need to consciously remember that the vehicle doesn't have $FEATURE. Effectively, cars are becoming a lot less standardized. A car I rented a few weeks ago beeped at…

It's a problem going the other way too. I drive an older vehicle and rented a car. I nearly had to ask the attendant how to start the car. Then I was entirely surprised when I stopped at a light and the engine turned off.

And don't get me started on center consoles. At least my last rental supported CarPlay and I was pleased to discover that it pretty much just worked. Other systems I've had seemed far more intent on downloading all my contacts rather than doing something useful from an entertainment or navigation perspective.

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

#94

Post by dawnerd »

pofilat wrote: post #89
ams6110 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What strange is, I can see unlocking the car and even starting it with this attack -- but do the cars not continually (or at least every minute or two) revalidate the presence of the key? Once they got very far away from the house, the car should shut off. Or so I would think.

So if you accidentally drop your keys while entering, or your passenger departs with your key, the car should lock itself 2 minutes later while you are driving?

Yeah, sounds reasonable to me. Either of those situations should already be solved. My car at least yells if the key goes away when the car is on and if you’re dumb enough to keep driving and that’s kinda on you.

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

#95

Post by dawnerd »

gambiting wrote: post #17

I already put mine in a metalic bag for the night, or just press the "lock" button twice which disables the keyless entry system entirely. Manufacturers really need to hurry up and implement more accurate timing detection in the keys - it should be absolutely trivial to detect how far away the key is based on the response time, but for some reason manufacturers don't do this yet. Edit: I also know people who take the…

Re: hitting button twice, car specific just in case anyone was going to try it without checking.

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

#96

Post by teraflop »

gambiting wrote: post #19
snarfy wrote: post #6

> Key fobs are constantly broadcasting a signal that communicates with a specific vehicle, he said, and when it comes into a close enough range, the vehicle will open and start. Why is it transmitting without the user pressing a button? Is that a feature? As you walk up to the car it automatically starts like magic? I'm not familiar with these newer cars.

>>Why is it transmitting without the user pressing a button? Is that a feature? It's not transmitting anything, it works pretty much the same way NFC works. Both the key and the car have their own public/private key pairs(which were obviously set by the manufacturer) and when you touch the handle the car transmits an unlock request to the key, encrypted with the car key's public key(this is going to get confusing lol…

This is kind of a nitpick, but it's unlikely that the keyfob is doing public key cryptography. Those things have to be as energy-efficient as possible in order to maximize battery life. An HMAC would accomplish effectively the same thing, and is much more efficient to compute.

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

#97

Post by alistproducer2 »

mikeash wrote: post #74
retSava wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since most car manufacturers seem to be vulnerable (to my knowledge), I assume all or most buy the same COTS keyfob + electronic lock product. Much like Takata airbags or Bosch ECUs. Being a step away from the problem probably helps keep that OEM manufacturer from strapping in and solving it. They don't feel any pain from it.

The vulnerability is pretty much inherent to the idea. No amount of encryption can protect you from a relay attack. The only foolproof mitigation is to enforce a short round trip time to ensure the fob is actually close to the car, but with the short distances involved that means the fob has to generate and transmit a response within a few nanoseconds.

I disagree. A physical switch on the key itself which opened a circuit to the decryption key would mean the key would need to physically be in the possession of the driver.

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

#98

Post by ams6110 »

pofilat wrote: post #88
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…

Insurance companies pressure drivers who have these misfeatures, drivers pressure car manufactures. See also: discounts for anti-theft tech and airbags.

The latest insurance "incentive" is a tracking device in your car that tracks when and where you drive, how fast, how hard you corner and stop, etc.

I've declined this but expect that insurers will push for it to become mandatory. They would love to be able to charge unsafe drivers more money, and in the abstract I don't have a problem with that, but the tracking is creepy.

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

#99

Post by Latteland »

Tesla recently added a good workaround. They added a setting where you can turn auto unlock or auto start off, which blocks this remote access hack. You have to use your key fob button at least once, say to unlock the car and then it just works wirelessly without further action.

My car is unlocked at night but in my garage. If they got in my garage somehow and had the signal repeater they couldn't drive off unless I pushed the keyfob button. In the morning I just have to push it once to go. You can also en/disable auto door lock if you walk away.

Of course a general solution that blocks signal repeaters would be best. Tesla has so many fun tweaks it's truly the programmer's car.

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

#100

Post by sofaofthedamned »

mysterydip wrote: post #65
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this has been a thing for years in the UK. Myself and my wife put our keys into a metal lunch box in the hallway which mitigates this problem, which was prompted by both next door neighbours getting their cars broken into.

Top Gear did a thing on this during their one road trip: https://youtu.be/-aU09WT5rXg fast forward to the 3 minute mark

Exactly. Luckily i've got a Kia which nobody wanted to steal, but it's definitely a well known attack vector. A car on one side got stolen, the other side 'just' had stuff stolen from it.
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