- Nov 25, 2016
- 851
- 2,327
I'm throwing this out to the members of the forum to see if someone has some information relevant to auto thefts and break-ins that are taking place in my area.
The latest example: two nights ago, a 2012 Land Rover LR4 was stolen while parked on the street in front of a neighbor's home. This was done by a group of men (or teenagers) traveling in a car, with three of them going down the street and checking the doors on every vehicle along the street. When they got to my neighbor's car, the door opened, one of them got in, and about five seconds later the Land Rover started up and drove off. This was recorded on a Nest camera, so (unsurprisingly) not much detail could be seen.
Here's the thing: according to my neighbor, the vehicle was locked, and he still has both key fobs in his possession. Yet his LR4 was stolen in a matter of seconds. But how?
The popular answer nowadays is: "Oh, they're using a relay attack to pick up your key fob signal from inside your house and steal your car." Everyone says that, but I consider the "relay attack" to be the Bigfoot of auto theft devices. Everyone talks about them, but no one can show any real proof. I have yet to see any evidence beyond proof-of-concept demonstrations, and stories of professional auto theft rings in the UK and EU doing this so that top-end luxury vehicles can be resold in Eastern Europe. By every account the relay attack requires two people: one to stand by the car with one piece of equipment to generate the fake key signal, and another to get near the house with a repeater to pick up the key fob signal from inside the home. This equipment would run into the thousands of dollars, yet somehow petty criminals are able to obtain and use them, even though the police have yet to recover such a device.
The argument that a group of gangbangers would have such equipment makes no sense to me. First of all, no one can point to a website where such a device can be purchased. And if such devices could be cheaply purchased and easily used, you'd see several hundred Youtubers creating videos showing how they can open their neighbors' cars. Second, if such a device did exist, why use it to steal an 8-year-old vehicle, instead of the many other late-model luxury cars and trucks parked along the streets of my neighborhood? For that matter, why aren't they stealing luxury cars on every street every night?
I also point out to people that even if a relay attack worked, it would be useless to a thief unless he had a plan for what to do with the vehicle afterwards. Wireless key fobs use rolling pseudorandom access codes that change after every use. You might be able to open the door and drive off the first time, but you wouldn't be able to re-start the car afterwards without the key. Unless you plan to strip the car, or replace the electronics while "laundering" it for resale, you'd be stuck with a car that you couldn't use. Yet instead these stolen vehicles seem to wind up abandoned and trashed on a city side road two or three weeks later. Someone, somehow, got a lot of use out of them.
In the past I've dismissed a lot of these stories as cases of people forgetting to lock their cars, or else leaving a spare key in the car and not wanting to admit how careless they were. Yet there are some people who absolutely swear they did everything right, yet the car was still stolen.
So ... does anyone have any knowledge of how such a theft or break-in could actually be accomplished? And by the way, I'm willing to be convinced that a relay attack could be accomplished with an inexpensive piece of equipment that a teenage gang member might have in his possession, but you'll have to show me a website where I could buy one, and also a video of someone using it. Instead, all I see are hucksters selling Faraday bags to shield your key fob (kind of like selling anti-polar bear amulets to Florida residents, in my opinion).
So what are the thieves using? Maybe a "master key" obtained from a dealership? Or something less sophisticated?
The latest example: two nights ago, a 2012 Land Rover LR4 was stolen while parked on the street in front of a neighbor's home. This was done by a group of men (or teenagers) traveling in a car, with three of them going down the street and checking the doors on every vehicle along the street. When they got to my neighbor's car, the door opened, one of them got in, and about five seconds later the Land Rover started up and drove off. This was recorded on a Nest camera, so (unsurprisingly) not much detail could be seen.
Here's the thing: according to my neighbor, the vehicle was locked, and he still has both key fobs in his possession. Yet his LR4 was stolen in a matter of seconds. But how?
The popular answer nowadays is: "Oh, they're using a relay attack to pick up your key fob signal from inside your house and steal your car." Everyone says that, but I consider the "relay attack" to be the Bigfoot of auto theft devices. Everyone talks about them, but no one can show any real proof. I have yet to see any evidence beyond proof-of-concept demonstrations, and stories of professional auto theft rings in the UK and EU doing this so that top-end luxury vehicles can be resold in Eastern Europe. By every account the relay attack requires two people: one to stand by the car with one piece of equipment to generate the fake key signal, and another to get near the house with a repeater to pick up the key fob signal from inside the home. This equipment would run into the thousands of dollars, yet somehow petty criminals are able to obtain and use them, even though the police have yet to recover such a device.
The argument that a group of gangbangers would have such equipment makes no sense to me. First of all, no one can point to a website where such a device can be purchased. And if such devices could be cheaply purchased and easily used, you'd see several hundred Youtubers creating videos showing how they can open their neighbors' cars. Second, if such a device did exist, why use it to steal an 8-year-old vehicle, instead of the many other late-model luxury cars and trucks parked along the streets of my neighborhood? For that matter, why aren't they stealing luxury cars on every street every night?
I also point out to people that even if a relay attack worked, it would be useless to a thief unless he had a plan for what to do with the vehicle afterwards. Wireless key fobs use rolling pseudorandom access codes that change after every use. You might be able to open the door and drive off the first time, but you wouldn't be able to re-start the car afterwards without the key. Unless you plan to strip the car, or replace the electronics while "laundering" it for resale, you'd be stuck with a car that you couldn't use. Yet instead these stolen vehicles seem to wind up abandoned and trashed on a city side road two or three weeks later. Someone, somehow, got a lot of use out of them.
In the past I've dismissed a lot of these stories as cases of people forgetting to lock their cars, or else leaving a spare key in the car and not wanting to admit how careless they were. Yet there are some people who absolutely swear they did everything right, yet the car was still stolen.
So ... does anyone have any knowledge of how such a theft or break-in could actually be accomplished? And by the way, I'm willing to be convinced that a relay attack could be accomplished with an inexpensive piece of equipment that a teenage gang member might have in his possession, but you'll have to show me a website where I could buy one, and also a video of someone using it. Instead, all I see are hucksters selling Faraday bags to shield your key fob (kind of like selling anti-polar bear amulets to Florida residents, in my opinion).
So what are the thieves using? Maybe a "master key" obtained from a dealership? Or something less sophisticated?
