Car thieves generally have low social status. After all, for the most part they “hot-wire,” find cars with the keys left in them, or more recently, resort to car jacking. None of which requires any degree of intelligence and/or organization.
That may be about to change, at least for modern car thieves.
Top Story: 100,000 cars can be hacked – Is yours being recalled? by Kelli Uhrich reports:
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Drivers of the Mitsubishi Outlander Hybrid could be vulnerable to being hacked through the car’s Wi-Fi console. A flaw was recently discovered that could allow hackers to disable the alarm before the car was stolen.Beyond disabling the alarm, cyberattackers could drain the car’s battery life, and even start the vehicle on some models.
Researchers discovered the vulnerability because of how the car’s Wi-Fi module works. Rather than using a GSM module, the Mitsubishi Outlander allows mobile devices to connect to the car by hosting its own Wi-Fi access point. This means your device must first disconnect from any other networks to connect.
It took researchers less than four days to hack into the system and explore the potential destruction hackers could create.
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The first one took four days but with the hints in Kelli’s post, I suspect a trained researcher could perform the hack in less than four days.
Within a few months, Mitsubishi Outlander “apps” will appear that let you open and start any Outlander on a parking lot.
How impressive with that be for your date? Just pick one.
Not that you should take a vehicle other than your own joy-riding, but considerate joy-riders leave the vehicle clean, unlocked and in a well-lighted location.