A car’s cybersecurity isn’t the easiest thing to advertise, compared to say, horsepower or leg room. Car companies also face the challenge of justifying increased security costs to customers, Fisher said.

Hacking tools are easily spread online and pervasive software threats are costly to patch up. The researchers could disengage the Jeep’s brakes, cause the transmission to malfunction, and, at lower speeds, kill the engine altogether. In an alarming demonstration captured by a widely read Wired article from 2015, researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek showed that they could wirelessly hijack a 2014 Jeep Cherokee. Another way is get authorized users to obtain the information themselves, and then pass it on, or to share active credentials with someone who shouldn’t have them.Įxperts say that widespread hacks of cars may soon become a reality. One way for criminals to extract stored information is to hack into a network that has access to it, she said. But in this case, it appears the security vulnerability may have been the integrity of the database. After all, rightful car owners would need that information to create new keys if they were locked out, Fisher said. That auto companies or their partners maintain databases to store key and programming codes is not in itself unusual. While Conover did not name the exact device that was used in the thefts, Katherine Fisher, a Tufts University computer science professor and security researcher, said that such key programmers are relatively cheap, and readily available online.

After using the duplicate key to get inside the car, the Hooligan members used a handheld electronic device to pair the key with the car’s computer to turn the engine on and drive off. In the course of the investigation, authorities said they learned that nearly 20 requests for duplicate keys were made by a single Jeep dealership, in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.Ĭonover said the thefts only took a matter of minutes. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

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