Willwork4truck
Spends too much time on here
As if we don't already have enough to worry about, ie. hotter temps, F5 tornadoes and hurricanes, power blackouts, running out of crucial items like, uhh Rocky Road ice cream, there's an article I ran across on key fobs that will give you pause if you don't think that smart thieves aren't "up" on hacking them:
www.forbes.com
An excerpt (tease) just to get you to read it (and contribute to my retirement account, ha ha) is:
(Begin copied portion of article):
"Even though I work with lock manufacturers in testing the security of their hardware, I rarely pay attention to cars. My vehicle has keyless entry, but I never considered seriously the security vulnerabilities inherent in these systems, or any possible privacy issues because my professional focus is on high security locks. Even more to the point, it never occurred to me that vehicle data could be stored in my key fob which might be used by insurance companies and the police for investigations and prosecutions. That all changed when I visited the Goth laboratory and Lockmaster’s office.
...Manfred was working on a car theft case involving a BMW which, I was told, stores more information on their keys than any other car company. I was shown a decoder that is produced by Abrites, a company in Sofia, Bulgaria. This group of highly-skilled software engineers specialize in developing electronic decoding and bypass systems for most of the vehicles in the world that employ key fobs and keyless entry. They make tools for locksmiths and some highly restricted versions for government agencies. The immobilizer systems, keys, locks, and central computers in the modern car can all be hacked to enter vehicles, plant bugs or tracking devices, clone keys, decode keys, read out critical data, or steal the car. Not only are government agencies and locksmiths using these systems, so are car thieves. (Bolding is mine)
Manfred Goth plugged the BMW key fob into the Abrites decoder and almost instantly, it read out a significant amount of data, including the Vehicle Identification Number, mileage, fuel level, and last time driven. Newer keys are also storing GPS data.
So how is this all relevant? It turns out that many insurance claims are filed for stolen cars, and a lot of those are false. In Europe, the insurance carriers require the owner to produce their car keys for examination upon making a report. Virtually no one understands that the data contained in their keys can be used against them in a criminal prosecution for attempted insurance fraud, or a denial of claim. Case in point: the owner files a police report that his car was stolen three days ago. He turned over his keys to prove that they were not left in the vehicle or given to the thieves. What the driver did not know was that the memory in the key logs the last time the car was driven and the ending mileage. In this particular case, the information on the keys showed that the car had been driven the day before, which meant it had to be a false claim.
I went to Lockmaster headquarters in Begheim, Germany for a further demonstration of key decoding and how to intercept critical information between key fob and car to steal the vehicle. Watch my interview with Enrico Wendt, the Operations Manager of the company, as he shows how to decode a BMW key fob. In my next article, you can watch Sascha Wendt, Technical Manager, as he shows how easy it is to drive away in a new Audi..." (End of copied portion)
Another Reason Not To Steal Cars: Key Fobs Now Store A Ton Of Data
(Photo: CHRIS YOUNG/AFP/Getty Images) During the past twenty years the locks and security systems for cars have undergone an incredible transformation from simple mechanical keys to sophisticated keyless entry systems that have often been difficult to compromise. Expensive high-end vehicles such...
www.forbes.com
An excerpt (tease) just to get you to read it (and contribute to my retirement account, ha ha) is:
(Begin copied portion of article):
"Even though I work with lock manufacturers in testing the security of their hardware, I rarely pay attention to cars. My vehicle has keyless entry, but I never considered seriously the security vulnerabilities inherent in these systems, or any possible privacy issues because my professional focus is on high security locks. Even more to the point, it never occurred to me that vehicle data could be stored in my key fob which might be used by insurance companies and the police for investigations and prosecutions. That all changed when I visited the Goth laboratory and Lockmaster’s office.
...Manfred was working on a car theft case involving a BMW which, I was told, stores more information on their keys than any other car company. I was shown a decoder that is produced by Abrites, a company in Sofia, Bulgaria. This group of highly-skilled software engineers specialize in developing electronic decoding and bypass systems for most of the vehicles in the world that employ key fobs and keyless entry. They make tools for locksmiths and some highly restricted versions for government agencies. The immobilizer systems, keys, locks, and central computers in the modern car can all be hacked to enter vehicles, plant bugs or tracking devices, clone keys, decode keys, read out critical data, or steal the car. Not only are government agencies and locksmiths using these systems, so are car thieves. (Bolding is mine)
Manfred Goth plugged the BMW key fob into the Abrites decoder and almost instantly, it read out a significant amount of data, including the Vehicle Identification Number, mileage, fuel level, and last time driven. Newer keys are also storing GPS data.
So how is this all relevant? It turns out that many insurance claims are filed for stolen cars, and a lot of those are false. In Europe, the insurance carriers require the owner to produce their car keys for examination upon making a report. Virtually no one understands that the data contained in their keys can be used against them in a criminal prosecution for attempted insurance fraud, or a denial of claim. Case in point: the owner files a police report that his car was stolen three days ago. He turned over his keys to prove that they were not left in the vehicle or given to the thieves. What the driver did not know was that the memory in the key logs the last time the car was driven and the ending mileage. In this particular case, the information on the keys showed that the car had been driven the day before, which meant it had to be a false claim.
I went to Lockmaster headquarters in Begheim, Germany for a further demonstration of key decoding and how to intercept critical information between key fob and car to steal the vehicle. Watch my interview with Enrico Wendt, the Operations Manager of the company, as he shows how to decode a BMW key fob. In my next article, you can watch Sascha Wendt, Technical Manager, as he shows how easy it is to drive away in a new Audi..." (End of copied portion)
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