Car keys 100 million easily forged vehicles – Le Figaro

A security flaw in the system of opening and remote closing of many models could be easily hacked. The Volkswagen group brands are particularly concerned.

The security door openings at distances of many car models would be particularly vulnerable. Researchers in Germany and Britain have indeed revealed a security flaw affecting around 100 million vehicles worldwide, reports the German press.

A study by Flavio Garcia, David Oswald and Pierre Pavlides, researchers from the University of Birmingham in collaboration with Timo Kasper, Kasper of the company & amp; Oswald GmbH specializes in computer security issues, manages indeed to show the great vulnerability of boxes that control the opening and closing of the vehicle, based on a rolling code system (rolling code). Researchers say so in their study presented in Austin, that “for most door closures, there are tools to decode the lock to create a corresponding key.”

The researchers indeed found that the major car manufacturers, including vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen since 1995, will offer a small number of combinations. It would be possible for hackers to circumvent key security system from old keys, due to the insufficient number of different passwords. Furthermore, according to the researchers, a hacker would have recovered encryption algorithms would simply need to intercept a single remote control signal from a vehicle to reproduce the code for the car key. In other words, a thief can easily reproduce the code sent by the remote control of a vehicle. Just that intercepts radio waves sent by the housing when the user actuates it.

The Volkswagen Group is among the most affected manufacturers. With its brand of the same name (Golf 4-6 for example) but also its brands Audi, Seat and Skoda, the group is “particularly affected” for its vehicles designed since 1995. When asked by the German media, the European giant of automobile admitted that “the security systems of vehicles aged up to 15 years do not have the same level of safety as (the) current vehicles” of the Volkswagen group. According to the study, the level of safety has actually increased since the number of combinations was increased, however, the authors argue that even today, vehicle safety remains vulnerable.

Security issues of the same type have also been identified by researchers with other manufacturers including the French Citroen (Nemo, Jumper), Peugeot (207 in particular) and Renault (Clio, Twingo, etc. ), Italian Fiat (Punto, Panda …), the German Opel (Astra, Corsa, etc.), the Japanese Nissan (including Qashqai), the American Ford (Ka) or other brands.

Thus, according to the researchers, these security flaws explain the growing number of cases of theft or burglary that insurers refuse to take charge. The authors therefore recommend that users of the vehicles concerned not to leave valuables. In case of valuables are left in vehicles, “we unfortunately can only recommend returning to the mechanical lock system,” the study concludes.