THE ERA OF “NEW GEEK DRIVE” HAS ARRIVED AS CAR THEFT HAS GONE HIGH TECH
Carjacking has largely become a forgotten criminal element, as
the profits decreased compared to the risk. During the 80s and 90s car thefts were more common in major cities and the profit margins were huge. There was even less risk of getting caught, cars themselves were even easier to break into. We’ve went from mechanical locks, to electric locks, and now we’ve connected these locks, the ignition systems, breaks and everything to software. This has made cars immensely safer and has led the way for the advent of self-driving vehicles. The more software driven our homes, cars and everything else becomes, the more quality of life we can get out of the, but the more vulnerable they are to black hat hackers, the bad guys. Recently hackers stole over 100 cars in the Houston area, and sent those cars off to Mexico, authorities are struggling to keep up and backtrack the crime. The thieved get into the car with a laptop, plug said laptop into vehicle, override normal systems, start the vehicle and pull off. Well let’s talk about how this works and how it happened in the next paragraphs. For years and years when customers were struggling with car payments, they would move the vehicle, due to the threat of repossession in an attempt to hide the vehicle until they could pay the car note. Car companies eventually sourced a solution to this, they wanted a way to shut down the ignition, within minutes of deciding to repossess the vehicle, this way the vehicle could not move. This would enable them to perhaps even avoid paying for towing. They could simply say, we will not reboot or start your ignition software until you pay. The problem with this solution, is that hackers can now take advantage of it and control your vehicle also. There will undoubtedly be lots of companies sending out security patches to vehicles to adjust, but if the main software or a copy of that vehicles software gets out on the market, then it’s like every other pirated software. Essentially car and finance companies wanted a way to hijack your vehicle and take control over it, by doing so they provide a way for hackers to do the same. There are multiple ways it can be done, either I can hack the vehicle and gain control of the car, which takes too long or I can install my own new copy of the software (re-image) program and drive off. It hasn’t been said which method were taken in Houston. So far, we know thieves hop into vehicle with laptop, plug in and pull off. Most of us have no clue how much software is actually in our vehicles, so we have no clue how vulnerable we are to the car and finance companies or to unscrupulous criminals, seeking to steal the vehicle. There is however a way to find out and some tips and steps we can take to protect ourselves, check them out below: