Tag Archive for: Thieves

Car Thieves Can Hack into Today’s Computerized Vehicles

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These days, cars are computer centers on wheels. Today’s vehicles can contain over 100 computers and millions of lines of software code. These computers are all networked together and can operate all aspects of your vehicle.

It’s not surprising, then, that car theft has also become high-tech.

The ones and zeros of getting from A to B

The computers in a vehicle can be divided into four categories. Many computers are dedicated to operating the vehicle’s drive train, including controlling the fuel, battery or both, monitoring emissions and operating cruise control.

The second category is dedicated to providing safety. These computers collect data from the vehicle and the outside environment and provide functions like lane correction, automatic braking and backup monitoring.

The third category is infotainment systems that provide music and video and can interface with your personal devices through Bluetooth wireless communications. Many vehicles can also connect to cellular services and provide Wi-Fi connectivity. The final category is the navigation system, including the car’s GPS system.

Computers in one category often need to communicate with computers in another category. For example, the safety system must be able to control the drive train and the infotainment systems.

One difference between the network in your car and a typical computer network is that all devices in the car trust each other. Therefore, if an attacker can access one computer, they can easily access other computers in the car.

As with any new technology, some aspects of today’s cars make it harder for thieves, and some make it easier. There are several methods of stealing a car that are enabled by today’s technology.

Hijacking wireless keys

One of the high-tech features is the use of keyless entry and remote start. Keyless entry has become common on many vehicles and is very convenient. The fob you have is paired to your car using a code that both your car and fob know, which prevents you from starting other cars. The difference between keyless entry and the remotes that unlock your car is that keyless entry fobs are always transmitting, so when you get near your car and touch the door,…

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Hackers, Fraudsters and Thieves: Understanding Cybersecurity in the Gaming Industry

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The gaming sector is under siege. The number of gaming-related cyber-attacks is growing at an alarming rate, and the online boom of the early 2000s brought hackers to the gate. In two decades, an industry worth tens of billions was transformed into one worth hundreds of billions in revenue – $221.4bn in 2023. Unsurprisingly, this growth and the opportunities it provides cyber-criminals did not go unnoticed. With such a lucrative target, hackers have long plagued the sector.

Moreover, the popularity of gaming has also been steadily increasing for years, with the total number of gamers soon to reach 3.32 billion in 2024. An increase in gamers has led to an abundance of targetable accounts storing all sorts of sensitive data. However, cyber-criminals aren’t just after gamers’ passwords and card details.

In-game digital assets, either through trickery or brute force, can be stolen or fabricated. Just last year, the most expensive CS:GO inventory, worth £2m, was stolen by hackers. And finally, let us not forget the bad actors who hack simply to gain a personal advantage over their fellow players.

What Impact Does This Have on the Gaming Industry?

From a developer or publisher standpoint, gaming-related cybercrime is detrimental to business. The inability to provide a safe and secure experience for players erodes consumer trust, undermines in-game economies and ultimately decreases game and microtransaction sales.

Just look at the bad PR that Fortnite has received recently. Admittedly, in this instance, a gaming behemoth like Epic Games will keep chugging along. But for smaller, less developed titles, such attacks can cause significant reputational damage. Consistently poor security practices will lead to diminishing player bases, either due to players giving up on the game or simply being unable to log in and play. For example, The Division is a game which experienced a player exodus largely due to rampant hacking. Despite the title’s financial success on release, The Division soon became known for its glitches, exploits and hacks that undermined the game’s long-term future. 

The most successful games are those that can maintain loyal player…

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Devices Sold Online Allow Thieves to Hack Into Cars in Minutes

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  • Emergency start devices sold online starting at $1,600 can hack into a car through its wire network. 
  • The easiest access to car wires is through the headlights, car security experts say. 
  • Over 1 million vehicles were stolen in the US in 2022, marking a 7% increase over 2021.

If you find someone has been tinkering with the headlights of your car, in what seems to be a pointless, if annoying, act of vandalism, be alarmed. Someone might be trying to steal it. 

That’s what automotive cybersecurity consultant Ian Tabor found out the hard way when his Toyota RAV4 got stolen shortly after he found its left headlight unplugged and the bumper around it pulled away. 

Tabor, who is the leader of the UK branch of the car security web community Car Hacking Village, got together with car security expert Ken Tindell to find out how the theft happened, as Tindell recounts in a recent blog post. 

The pair thinks that thieves gained control of the car’s computer system by finding the internal wires easiest to access — in this case, the ones connecting the headlights to the system — and plugging a hacking device that can be easily bought online into it. 

Once it’s connected to the car’s wires, the hacking device sends a signal to the engine control unit via the controller…

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Thieves Are Hacking Cars Through Headlights

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⚡️ Read the full article on Motorious

The wonders of modern technology!

We’ve covered before how thieves are using seemingly ordinary-looking devices to hack into cars’ CAN bus and start the engine without a key, but a new wave of reports is shining a light on this problem again. They’re actually referencing a story which broke back in January from the UK after a cybersecurity specialist had his Toyota RAV4 stolen after it was seemingly vandalized twice before.

Learn why young drivers are being called car theft magnets here.

The guy didn’t realize until the vehicle was gone those “vandalisms” were actually thieves unsuccessfully attempting to hack the CAN bus and get the vehicle unlocked and started. They had pulled off trim pieces around the headlight, pulling out cables which connect the headlight to the computer which control them.

That’s how you can have adaptive headlights and other advanced features on modern cars: everything is connected through the CAN bus or the Controller Area Network. Acting like the nervous system for a vehicle’s different systems, it connects ECUs so they can share information and coordinate responses to on-road conditions, etc. together.

What most people don’t realize is there are relatively inexpensive devices which are supposed to only be used by locksmiths but can be purchased by anyone and are capable of unlocking and even starting a vehicle by hacking into the CAN bus.

Thieves are going after the connections to the headlights because they’re especially easy to reach, although they can do the same thing using other connections. To reach the wires which provide access to the CAN, thieves have to pry back or remove trim pieces on the vehicle, including the front or rear bumper covers. If you find someone has done that to your car, they were probably trying to steal it.

Without going into too much detail, these “locksmith” devices can be purchased already embedded in seemingly innocent things like Bluetooth speakers, a cell phone, etc. If police stop suspects, they might not realize they’re carrying one of these devices used for stealing cars.

Using the device, a thief can unlock a car and have it started in…

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