Entry To A Volkswagen Car May Be Hacked, Yours Might Be Stolen From Others

Do you own a Volkswagen car? Then you should be alarmed, your car might be stolen because of a security vulnerability in the keyless entry technology of your car.

Volkswagen, a leading automotive manufacturing company based in Germany producing millions of cars annually, is now facing a huge problem in resolving  security issues in keyless entry technology of their car units. The vulnerability is to be caused by a cryptographic bug. Computer scientists from University of Birmingham in UK discovered the vulnerability that could be present to car models manufactured since 1995. An estimated of 100 million units is suspected to be susceptible to the attack. This includes other car brands under the Volkswagen group like Audi, Seat, and Skoda since they also contain the same keyless entry technology. However, several units and models, including the present generation of models seem to not have the similar keyless entry flaw.

Two years ago, the same group of computer scientists also revealed a vulnerability involving an attack that could ignite the car engine without the necessary keys but the probing was delayed by a lawsuit filed by the Volkswagen Group.

Hackers could exploit the bug to enter the car premises using a universal keyless remote clone. Keyless entry employs a cryptographic digital key that is specifically designed to open a specific car unit. The Volkswagen management told the public not to panic over the security issue because decoding a cryptographic code is nearly impossible and that only a cryptography expert with a very high level of experience in code breaking is capable of exploiting the vulnerability. There were also zero reported cases of carnapping that involved the exploit of the said crytographic bug. The researchers from University of Burmingham who published the research paper presented in Usenix ,intentionally omitted some necessary information to prevent other cryptographers from discovering how to exploit the bug.

Volkswagen Group spokesperson, said in an article reported by BBC that the computer scientists who revealed the vulnerability is working together with the company's team responsible for the keyless entry feature to resolve the issue. There will also be a thorough testing to all models suspected to have the security flaw.