Car Manufacturers on Watch as Man Sells Device to Hack Key Fobs

Technology can be incredibly convenient. As time goes on, more and more unwanted situations are taken away from our attention. Sometimes, these situations can be made easier in ways that we never thought possible. For example, who thought in the 1990s that we would all be opening our cars with the press of a button?

Pretty much every car on the market these days comes with some sort of keyless entry. We’re sure that if someone looks hard enough, they could probably find a new car without the feature. For the sake of argument, though, we would probably place keyless entry in the category of options that are pretty much-becoming standard across the board. In fact, the keyless entry might even soon be a thing of the past. Many models now allow users to unlock and start them from a cell phone app.

No matter how advanced security technology gets, though, it seems like there’ll always be someone to figure out a way around it. Just like car doors were being popped open in seconds back in the 90s, today, something similar is happening. The only differentiating factor with modern cars is that a computer is being used to help unlock the doors and start the ignition.

In the video featured below, we actually join in with an individual who is selling this technology on the internet. In a report from Vice’s Motherboard, we learn that there are two options available. For those looking for the bare-bones basic key fob hacking computer setup, it can be had for $9,000. There’s also a more advanced version that covers more models that goes for $12,000.

Essentially, how it works, is one individual will get close to the car with one piece of hardware that communicates with the target vehicle. The other will use a piece of hardware to try and pick up the signal from the key fob. In theory, this combination should be able to start up a vehicle and allow it to drive away.

The person selling this hardware insists that it’s all done in good faith. It also comes with the disclaimer that those who purchase it shouldn’t use it for wrongdoing. Instead, the seller says that the process is exposing flaws in current security designs. If you want to talk about one way that will keep these companies accountable for their security systems, making it public like this is certainly a method of doing it.