The People's Car Gets PWNed

August 11, 2016 9:55 AM

On the heels of reports of Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche models being outfitted with firmware designed to fool environmental emissions tests, there now comes news that a vulnerability in keyless entry mechanisms of 100 million VWs made within the last 21 years can permit the cars to be unlocked by intruders carrying an Arduino kit.
posted by Smart Dalek (42 comments total)

This kind of hack has been around for a while now and isn't limited to just VW.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:01 AM on August 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Auf wiedersehen, Felix
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:02 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

More like PVWNed, no?
posted by chavenet at 10:06 AM on August 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Haha.

I had a 1970 VW beetle and my friend had a 1963 VW Beetle. His key could unlock my car's doors (although his key did not fit the ignition). Every once in a while I'd come out of wherever and discover my car was... not where I'd left it but as far away as one guy could push a VW Beetle with a locked steering column.

(The second linked article notes that "only the most recent Volkswagen Golf 7, which introduced a new locking system, and other cars with the same system are safe" which is kinda vague ("other cars"??), but means my friend will not be able to reprise the prank were he to come across an arduino.)
posted by notyou at 10:06 AM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

We had both a New Beetle (2001 model) and a 2003 Jetta for a few years. After them being parked next to each other, I noticed that the when I pressed the unlock button on the keyfob for the Jetta, it would unlock both cars - same with all of the other functions. It only worked one way, but the Jetta keyfob would work 100% of the time on the Beetle.

A couple months later, a neighbor moved in that drove a Passat. Sure enough, within a month we noticed that their keyfob worked on the Beetle too.

My girlfriend took it in to the dealer - they refused to acknowledge the problem, until she took them outside of the dealership and showed them that any keyfob would open her car - it was unlocking and locking itself whenever anyone on the lot would press a button.
posted by synthetik at 10:11 AM on August 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Hey cool. Could someone maybe grab my TDI and take it for a wash? It's filthy. Also I'd love it if you could spring for a tuneup; it's overdue for a servicing but I'm not gonna pay for one until they sort out this whole buy-back thing.
Bring it back whenever.
posted by chococat at 10:12 AM on August 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

After locking my keys in my 1972 Beetle, I found out that by wiggling the vent window I could get the vent window latch to pop open, then just reach in and unlock the door. Given that those old cars were super easy to hot wire, my security if I left it anywhere sketchy was to just remove the rotor from the engine.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:12 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

From the Telegraph link:
The two flaws in Volkswagen's keyless entry software are present in almost every car Volkswagen has sold since 1995, according to the researchers at the University of Birmingham, including models from Audi, Ford, Fiat, Skoda, Citroen and Peugeot.

What? Audi and Skoda are part of VAG; Ford, Fiat, Citroen, and Peugeot aren't and never were. Gotta confess I don't get this.
posted by rp at 10:13 AM on August 11, 2016

Well, at least I have a use for that spare Arduino...
posted by pipeski at 10:13 AM on August 11, 2016

Fahrvergstealin
posted by leotrotsky at 10:18 AM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

my security if I left it anywhere sketchy

... was that it was a goddamn '73 Beetle with a giant hole where the radio was supposed to be, so that there would be at least SOME ventilation other than the floor vents, which were heated year-round because I could either wire the heater open or shut, and if I wired it shut there would be no defroster. Oh, and the whole compartment would quickly fill with blue smoke while driving.

JUST GO AHEAD AND TAKE THE DAMN THING ALREADY
posted by me & my monkey at 10:19 AM on August 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

Unless I'm misreading it or the article is misinformed it appears that they need to intercept an unlock code from a valid fob for the car in order for this to work so.. still serious but not nearly as dangerous unless someone is targeting you specifically for some reason.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:21 AM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

They'll also have to defeat the door-lock module in my GTI that locks the car all by itself.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:36 AM on August 11, 2016

I had this. My car was an old beater Audi and whatever I left in the glove box used to be gone the next day, with no sign of forced entry. One time it was a can of Red Bull, another time it was a few of my Beatles CDs.
posted by Coda Tronca at 10:39 AM on August 11, 2016

notyou: My parents '76 Chevy truck had a key that worked perfectly in another local '76 Chevy, we learned this when my mom drove theirs home one night after hockey. Luckily they figured it out and their key worked in ours, we didn't actually swap trucks back for about a week.
posted by Cosine at 10:39 AM on August 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

my mom drove theirs home one night after hockey

Is that what they're calling it these days?

Apropos of the thread, I had to abandon my old Beetle in a pediatric practice's parking lot once and walk home through a heavy ice storm because the defroster on full blast couldn't keep the windshield from icing up.

There were a lot of things about that car that made security less of a major concern...
posted by Naberius at 10:44 AM on August 11, 2016

Somewhere, an engineer is shouting "I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN".
posted by tobascodagama at 10:44 AM on August 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

Haha.

I had a 1970 VW beetle and my friend had a 1963 VW Beetle. His key could unlock my car's doors (although his key did not fit the ignition).

By my informal count, between the time I was about 16 and 30, my family, my friends, and myself drove about 17 different air-cooled VWs built between 1963 and 1973.

We were constantly finding bizarre combinations of keys that would fit either the ignition or door of one or more vehicle it didn't belong to.

We didn't think of it as a negative in those days. It was kinda charming.

Every once in a while I'd come out of wherever and discover my car was... not where I'd left it but as far away as one guy could push a VW Beetle with a locked steering column.

Oh, and manually 're-parking' VWs by employing a sufficiently large group of people to pick up at least the rear end (1800 lbs) was something of a sport in those days, too.

That and stealing the engines.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:46 AM on August 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Back in the late '60's early '70's I discovered that every Ford at that time used one of 7 keys. I accumulated a set and proceeded to amaze my friends and confound my enemies with my car hotwiring prowess. They thought I was a criminal mastermind who only used his powers for good, but, really, I just had the key.
posted by Floydd at 10:46 AM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I had to abandon my old Beetle in a pediatric practice's parking lot once and walk home through a heavy ice storm because the defroster on full blast couldn't keep the windshield from icing up.

My '67 Squareback didn't move for ten days during the blizzard of January 1978. Not becauae it wouldn't start -- it did. But because it didn't have the power to extract itself from the puddle of water that I'd parked it in the night before the weather went from 40F and raining to -20F and snowing sideways.

Nothing about keys; I just like telling that story.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:50 AM on August 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

my security if I left it anywhere sketchy

on my own '69 Beetle was that it looked like a piece of crap: original paint, big ol' splotches of spray paint (don't judge me, I was young and permanently broke!), one fender in never-painted Primer Gray and a tasteful dash of rust decorating the whole thing. Somebody actually broke open my gas tank one night (the covering flap was normally opened by a wire inside the glove box), but must have been disappointed when they found the tank was dang near empty, so I had nothing for them to siphon out.

On the bright side, they did leave a half-filled gas can inside the car, with a note saying "you need this more than I do".
posted by easily confused at 10:52 AM on August 11, 2016 [19 favorites]

I always liked driving my old beetle in the snow - narrow tires, all the weight over the rear wheels and rear drive, and enough ground clearance meant it could plow through pretty well anything. Usually drove with an ice scraper in one hand to clear the window though.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:53 AM on August 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

90s Toyotas seem to have had a similar security profile. Got locked out of a '95 Corolla at a festival one time and an older dude in camp noticed we were in trouble and just hollered "anybody got a Toyota?" and sure enough the first key we tried worked.

I've learned just enough about locks and lockpicking since to realize that a lot of physical security is even more of a joke than it appears to be on the surface.
posted by brennen at 10:56 AM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

a lot of physical security is even more of a joke than it appears to be on the surface.

Good thing we're such an ethical and altruistic species, eh?

Years and years ago I heard the adage "locks only discourage casual thieves", and nothing I've encountered since then has proven it false.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:17 AM on August 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

"locks are only there to make you less attractive than the person with a worse lock"
posted by Cosine at 11:22 AM on August 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh yeah, not to mention the time we stupidly tried to drive through the Pennsylvania mountains on I-81 during a snowstorm because it wasn't snowing that much and we were poor students (who else drives a 25-year-old Beetle?) and couldn't afford a motel for the night. And then it was snowing that much, and then the Beetle was doing pirouettes down the interstate while a semi blew past us in the next lane. Amazed we weren't killed that night.

Driving that Beetle was absolutely the closest I've ever come to actually dying. Probably the second closest as well, and it's got a pretty good argument for third closest.

But security wasn't an issue at least...
posted by Naberius at 11:37 AM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, in a neighborhood I lived in for many years, locking your car just meant you'd lose a window in addition to the object if there was something in your car that seemed attractive to a thief. Much cheaper to just not lock the car at all.

The Toyota thing is definitely true. Had two cars stolen from the lot where I work in the last couple years, neither was broken into and both were driven away within moments of the thieves gaining entry. The cops said it happens a lot since there are what they called "factory keys" that will work on any Toyota from certain groups of years.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:40 AM on August 11, 2016

About 40 years ago, 60 Minutes featured an expert car thief. The adage he left was, if somebody wants your car, there is nothing you can do to prevent it, of course he was talking the high end stuff.

Yeah, we had a 68' VW, the station wagon version. Dad drove us to California, in the summer of 69'.
Interesting to see home movies of something you cannot remember but we had it long enough so I too could learn the secret glass louvre entry to unlock it. Water cooled, hell of a machine.
posted by clavdivs at 11:44 AM on August 11, 2016

What? Audi and Skoda are part of VAG; Ford, Fiat, Citroen, and Peugeot aren't and never were. Gotta confess I don't get this.

A common supplier of a chip connected to an antenna would be more than enough to do the trick.
posted by mhoye at 12:24 PM on August 11, 2016

(Having said that, car locks - like the door locks on your house right now - do very nearly nothing to deter professionals, or indeed anyone the least bit serious. They exist only to draw a legal line between where you're allowed to be and where you're not, and to keep out teenagers and other opportunists.)
posted by mhoye at 12:26 PM on August 11, 2016

Jalopnik has a few more details. Looks like they showed proof-of-concept of two different attacks, and the VW one only gets you into the car. It doesn't allow you to get around the engine immobilizer and start the car.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:31 PM on August 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Some of these stories sound like something out of the Red Green car book. His advice on not getting your car stolen: Always park beside a nicer car. Hard to do at Possum lake, but pretty easy anywhere else. Failing that, find a car with a bashed in front corner, and always park against a post as if you've been in an accident.

Man I loved that book as a kid.

(Also: My parents first car was a green VW Beetle. No idea what year it was, but they drove it from Toronto to Calgary multiple times. I still have a toy of it.)
posted by Canageek at 12:32 PM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

So 2016 VW is essentially 1976 GM in its hubris, contempt for the law, contempt for its customers, and lazy profiteering, is what we're saying?
posted by maxwelton at 12:45 PM on August 11, 2016

I had to call a locksmith once when I managed to lock myself out of my Lancer while it was running (apparently the electronic fob won't unlock the doors if the ignition is on).

I imagined the guy would have some kind of cool mechanical gizmo he'd place over the lock that would pick it automatically or something. But nope, a modest prybar opened my door in about 4 seconds and left no trace of intrusion.
posted by Foosnark at 1:52 PM on August 11, 2016

Back in the day before key fobs, I lost my car. I wandered around the grocery parking lot for a few minutes trying to find my car, and finally stumbled across my bronze/brown 87 VW Jetta. I unlocked the door with the old fashioned key, sat down and put the key in the ignition. As I turned the key and nothing happened an odd level of confusion started to creep in. The seat was too far back, there was a Diet Coke in the cup holder, and most surprising, my car was suddenly an automatic. It was at that moment that I realized I was in the wrong car.

I got out, locked and shut the door back and started looking for my car. Walking towards me was a guy who was grinning stupidly. "Did you try to make the car go?" he asked.
"Yeah, but your car is not my car. Apparently." I replied.

Turns out that two weeks earlier a the same store, he'd hopped into my car and was deeply confused where the third pedal came from. His key unlocked my doors, but like my experience wouldn't actually start the car.

I got some very obvious bumper stickers to make it easier to id my car shortly after, but I always wondered how many times that guy almost got in my car before then.
posted by teleri025 at 1:56 PM on August 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Usually drove with an ice scraper in one hand to clear the window though.

I thought I was the only one who ever did that.
posted by me & my monkey at 3:42 PM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Greg_Ace: "Years and years ago I heard the adage "locks only discourage casual thieves", and nothing I've encountered since then has proven it false."

I've always known this as locks are there to keep honest people honest or more succinctly "locks are for honest people".

me & my monkey: "I thought I was the only one who ever did that."

I used this trick in my Beetle too. And numerous other pre mid 70s cars. Anyone who thinks cars haven't gotten better is horribly misinformed.

Anyone remember frost shields? I had a 46 Ford with a glass frost shield on the drivers side windshield.
posted by Mitheral at 4:05 PM on August 11, 2016

a modest prybar opened my door in about 4 seconds

Are you referring to a slimjim, perhaps?

Works fine, lasts a long time.

Usually drove with an ice scraper in one hand to clear the window though.

I thought I was the only one who ever did that.

Yup. Drove from Cedar Rapids to Columbus OH in a frozen fog one time, living the Little Feat song lyric, "six feet of snow, coming through the radio. . . "

 


 
posted by Herodios at 5:21 PM on August 11, 2016

Again feeling better that I never tried to get a New Beetle.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:17 PM on August 11, 2016

I fitted Harrod Blank's VW with a electric defroster I made from a reworked hair dryer. I reworked it so it put out about 200 watts (about 15A) it worked pretty good for that but did little to heat the car.

When you have a car like that people won't steal it.

Worked for my Datsun 1200 that was painted to look like a flying tiger too.
posted by boilermonster at 12:12 AM on August 12, 2016

Again feeling better that I never tried to get a New Beetle.

Mrs. H's New Beetle is her third VW. It's 16 years old. Loves it.
Her second VW was the 1988 Golf (German-built) that she drove for 14 years.

FWIW, the only car she ever had broken into was the AMC / Renault Alliance she got talked into. They stole the radio.

I believe I have had every car I've owned since the late 1980s ransacked at least once. I don't lock 'em. Biggest loss so far is a stack of quarters.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:09 AM on August 12, 2016

maxwelton: "So 2016 VW is essentially 1976 GM in its hubris, contempt for the law, contempt for its customers, and lazy profiteering, is what we're saying?"

I experienced the same phenomenon in the early 1980s in a Toyota (keys worked on the door, but not the ignition). I'm imagining it was fairly common for any late 70's, early 80's manufacturer, no matter how scrupled or unscrupled.
posted by Bugbread at 10:49 PM on August 18, 2016