Teslas can still be stolen with a cheap radio hack despite new keyless tech
Tesla owners should enable PIN-to-drive protection to thwart relay attacks.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
For at least a decade, a car theft trick known as a “relay attack” has been the modern equivalent of hot-wiring: a cheap and relatively easy technique to steal hundreds of models of vehicles.
But when one group of Chinese researchers actually checked whether it's still possible to perform relay attacks against the latest Tesla and a collection of other cars that support that next-gen radio protocol, they found that they're as stealable as ever.
In a video shared with WIRED, researchers at the Beijing-based automotive cybersecurity firm GoGoByte demonstrated that they could carry out a relay attack against the latest Tesla Model 3 despite its upgrade to an ultra-wideband keyless entry system, instantly unlocking it with less than a hundred dollars worth of radio equipment.
Instead, a hacker's device near the car has, in fact, relayed the signal from the owner's real key, which might be dozens or hundreds of feet away.
Or, as GoGoByte researcher Yuqiao Yang describes, the trick could even be carried out by the person behind you in line at a café where your car is parked outside.
“That's how fast it can happen, maybe just a couple seconds.” The attacks have become common enough that some car owners have taken to keeping their keys in Faraday bags that block radio signals—or in the freezer.
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“That’s how fast it can happen, maybe just a couple seconds.” The attacks have become common enough that some car owners have taken to keeping their keys in Faraday bags that block radio signals—or in the freezer.
That makes me laugh.
Just to be able to push a button to start you car, you have to keep your keys in a faraday bag or in the Freezer. That's just silly
I was recently looking at new vehicles nearly all have push button starts.
I like my old keys of my 2010 car, turn to power the engine. I start to become an grumpy old fart waving his cane in his thirties. Technology seems to be 1 step forward two steps backwards sometimes. Don’t get me started on car screen buttons, tactile ones or some that have two functions like (fan speed + audio volume - rented a car that worked that way. My copilot didn’t want to touch on those buttons anymore)
I really wonder what will be my options when this one will not work anymore.