{"id":238762,"date":"2016-08-13T05:32:50","date_gmt":"2016-08-13T05:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=238762"},"modified":"2016-08-13T05:32:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T05:32:50","slug":"millions-of-volkswagen-cars-can-be-unlocked-via-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=238762","title":{"rendered":"‘Millions’ of Volkswagen cars can be unlocked via hack"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sizeable proportion of 100 million Volkswagen Group cars sold since 1995 can be unlocked remotely by hackers, a team of researchers has said.<\/p>\n

The problem affects a range of vehicles manufactured between 1995 and 2016 – including VWs and models from the company’s Audi, Seat and Skoda brands.<\/p>\n

A homemade radio costing about \u00a330 is the only hardware an attacker requires.<\/p>\n

Volkswagen said it was working with the researchers and added that several new vehicles were unaffected by the issue.<\/p>\n

Two separate attacks affecting different models are described in a paper by researchers from the University of Birmingham and German security firm Kasper & Oswald.<\/p>\n

With the second method, an older cryptographic scheme in some other brands was found to have a similar, albeit more complex vulnerability.<\/p>\n

The team showed it was possible for a malicious hacker to spy on key fob signals to target cars via a cheap, homemade radio.<\/p>\n

‘Cryptographic catastrophe’<\/strong><\/p>\n

By cloning the digital keys, the researchers found they could then unlock a variety of VW Group vehicles.<\/p>\n

This was possible because they were able to reverse-engineer the keyless entry system in the affected models – a process which yielded some master cryptographic keys.<\/p>\n

Prior to publishing their research, the team behind the paper agreed with Volkswagen that some key pieces of information – including the value of the master cryptographic keys – would not be made public.<\/p>\n

“We were kind of shocked,” Timo Kasper at Kasper & Oswald told the BBC. “Millions of keys using the same secrets – from a cryptography point of view, that’s a catastrophe.”<\/p>\n

\"VolkswagenImage copyright<\/span>AFP<\/span><\/span>
Image caption<\/span>Volkswagen produces around 10 million cars every year<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr Kasper said that after the researchers alerted Volkswagen to the problem in November 2015, they set up some meetings to help the car maker understand the vulnerability.<\/p>\n

“We had very fruitful discussions – there was a very good atmosphere,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, there are “at least ten more, very widespread” hacking schemes affecting various other car brands that Kasper & Oswald is still waiting to publish, following appropriate disclosure to the companies involved, Mr Kasper added.<\/p>\n

‘Constructive exchange’<\/strong><\/p>\n

A spokesman for Volkswagen said several current-generation vehicles, including the Golf, Tiguan, Touran and Passat were not affected by the problem.<\/p>\n

“The responsible department at Volkswagen Group is in contact with the academics mentioned and a constructive exchange is taking place,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

The spokesman added that starting the car’s engine with this attack was “not possible”.<\/p>\n

Security expert Ken Munro at Pen Test Partners said critical components of the attack had been omitted from the published paper.<\/p>\n

“You’d need some academic-level knowledge of cryptography to be able to do this,” he added.<\/p>\n

\"VW<\/span><\/figure>\n

However, he also said the research was the latest in a string of similar findings that showed how many on-board systems in modern cars were vulnerable to hacking.<\/p>\n

“Manufacturers are doing the right thing now, but you’ve got this huge problem with the installed base, those cars will last maybe 10 years – the fix is not simple,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

“You’re potentially replacing all the control units in all the vehicles out there.”<\/p>\n

Mr Munro added that it might be possible to prevent the reverse-engineering approach taken by the researchers in order to prevent the discovery of the crucial cryptographic keys.<\/p>\n

The paper will be presented later today at the Usenix cybersecurity conference in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sizeable proportion of 100 million Volkswagen Group cars sold since 1995 can be unlocked remotely by hackers, a team of researchers has said. The problem affects a range of vehicles manufactured between 1995 and 2016 – including VWs and models from the company’s Audi, Seat and Skoda brands. A homemade radio costing about \u00a330 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":238765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=238762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/238765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=238762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=238762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=238762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}