Skip to main content

Security Vulnerability Could Put Millions of Volkswagens at Risk

According to findings from the University of Birmingham, a vulnerability in security code could allow thieves to break into almost all Volkswagens produced since 1995.

The vulnerability has been found by University of Birmingham computer scientist Flavio Garcia and a team of researchers. Garcia is already familiar with VW security. In 2013, he found a security lapse that allowed his research team to start the ignition on millions of Volkswagens. His results were delayed until last year, because of a lawsuit, but now he’s back at it.

The vulnerability affects a number of other brands, including Ford, Fiat, Nissan, and more, say the researchers and the attacks use cheap and readily available technology.

“The cost of the hardware is small, and the design is trivial,” Garcia tells Wired. “You can really build something that functions exactly like the original remote.”

The attack still requires a bit of creativity, and Garcia isn’t revealing some of the finer details of how they are accomplished, but it’s suspected that similar attack might already be occurring. Earlier this month, for instance, more than 30 Jeeps were stolen in Texas with what looked like laptops.

The only good news is that Volkswagen seems to be getting wise to the vulnerability. The Mk7 Golf appears to be immune to the attack that Garcia discovered.

More good news is that the designer of the security algorithm, NXP, is also wise to the vulnerability and has been steadily improving the system. For now, though, Garcia recommends that owners not leave valuables in their cars.

[source]

The post Security Vulnerability Could Put Millions of Volkswagens at Risk appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2aVK7aR
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...