How secure is keyless entry?

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fourcandles
fourcandles Posts: 122 Forumite
in Motoring
On the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 yesterday there was an article on a spate of thefts of keyless entry cars. This got my attention as we are picking up our new (well, new-ER) car next week, which happens to have keyless technology.

Apparently criminals are now using a gadget to pick up the weak radio signal from the key fob in the house, amplify it and relay it to the car, which unlocks it, then they can just drive off!

It appears that the way to avoid this is to keep your key fob in a metal box or wrap it in aluminium foil to block the signal. Which got me wondering, why does the fob have to be transmitting all the time, even when you aren't driving the car? Surely a simple on/off switch on the fob would turn the signal off when not in use?
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  • facade
    facade Posts: 7,030 Forumite
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    edited 20 April 2017 at 8:54AM
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    They are not supposed to work if the key is more than 10cm from the car, I imagine the car tries to wake up the key, but the key won't respond if it is out of range.

    The posh BMWs are covered with aerials and only allow the door (or boot) nearest to the key to open.


    They are about as secure as anything nowadays, as long as you can produce all the original keys for your insurer, and you have gap insurance, you will be fine.
    If someone wants your car, they will take it.

    My Nissan/Renault has remote keyless entry with deadlocking, which works well, the interior mechanism is disconnected when deadlocked, except you'd never get back in with a flat battery, so there is a mechanical unlocker with a keyhole on the passenger side, that the old hacksaw blade with a notch in will open!
    I bet most keyless entry systems are the same, simply defeat the mechanical override then climb in the passenger side, plug the pocket pc into the diagnostic port and reprogramme the security and drive away.

    I think intercepting and boosting the signal enough to get the key in your house to respond, then retransmitting it to the car is a little far-fetched.

    Possibly, they could use the visible VIN number to produce a clone of the key somehow, that would be fairly easy if they had access to a copy of the manufacturers security data.
    I want to go back to The Olden Days, when every single thing that I can think of was better.....

    (except air quality and Medical Science ;))
  • Herzlos
    Herzlos Posts: 14,688 Forumite
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    It doesn't entirely make sense - sure they might be able to open and start it on the drive, but once they've taken it somewhere they'd not be able to start it again.
  • facade
    facade Posts: 7,030 Forumite
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    Herzlos wrote: »
    It doesn't entirely make sense - sure they might be able to open and start it on the drive, but once they've taken it somewhere they'd not be able to start it again.

    They don't need to start it again. Only drive it straight inside the container. ;)
    I want to go back to The Olden Days, when every single thing that I can think of was better.....

    (except air quality and Medical Science ;))
  • shaun_from_Africa
    shaun_from_Africa Posts: 12,858 Forumite
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    Herzlos wrote: »
    It doesn't entirely make sense - sure they might be able to open and start it on the drive, but once they've taken it somewhere they'd not be able to start it again.
    Unless of course, if a laptop was used to copy the signal from the key and that signal was then stored in the laptop and could be used to start the vehicle again or used to program a new transmitter.
    Even if the thieves couldn't start the car again straight away. Once they have it stored somewhere safe with any tracker disabled or blocked, they would then have plenty of time to ship it out of country, strip the car down for parts or simply carry on fiddling with it until they could bypass the immobiliser totally.
    After all, even if it couldn't be started immediately, a £30k+ vehicle would still be worth a fair bit if only used for spares or if it required the engine computer and immobiliser unit replacing.
  • EmmyLou30
    EmmyLou30 Posts: 599 Forumite
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    The keyless entry on my MINI requires you to be very close to the car with the key.....sometimes if I have my bag slung on my back with the key in that's too far away and I have to hover the handbag closer to the door! So that signal would take some serious boosting to work from the key inside my house. Not something I'd lose sleep over personally.
  • debtdebt
    debtdebt Posts: 949 Forumite
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    I have an Audi with keyless entry. The key stays in my pocket and I walk up to the car, place my hand behind the handle and it unlocks. To lock, I just press a small area on the outer handle. However, because it automatically unlocks if i try to open the door, I can never be sure that it had locked. I have to put my trust in the system to work. Sometimes, I just press the lock button on the key itself to make sure it has definitely locked.

    I also have auto boot but once the boot didn't close and re opened when I walked away because something was lying over the mechanism. I walked back to an open boot but thankfully nothing had been taken.
  • shaun_from_Africa
    shaun_from_Africa Posts: 12,858 Forumite
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    EmmyLou30 wrote: »
    The keyless entry on my MINI requires you to be very close to the car with the key.....sometimes if I have my bag slung on my back with the key in that's too far away and I have to hover the handbag closer to the door! So that signal would take some serious boosting to work from the key inside my house
    I realise that they operate on totally different frequencies but I keep one of these
    https://www.amazon.com/Alfa-AWUS036H-802-11b-Wireless-network/dp/B002WCEWU8
    along with a directional antenna in my laptop bag when I'm travelling abroad and it allows me to connect to Wi-Fi routers that are often in excess of 50m away.
    It's cheap and looks like a novelty that won't possibly work but it works extremely well.
    This sort of booster is now old technology and can be manufactured for a few pounds so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that someone has made something similar that will work with keyless fob transmitters.
  • fourcandles
    fourcandles Posts: 122 Forumite
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    Some sort of Russian military software apparently!

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thieves-use-laptop-hack-estate-10247459?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_radio_2&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=radio_and_music
  • Car_54
    Car_54 Posts: 8,213 Forumite
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    fourcandles wrote: »
    Some sort of Russian military software apparently!

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thieves-use-laptop-hack-estate-10247459?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_radio_2&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=radio_and_music

    Looks like I should be keeping my car keys in my tinfoil hat.
  • movilogo
    movilogo Posts: 3,186 Forumite
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    If you are worried, just don't buy a car with keyless entry. Simple.
    Happiness is buying an item and then not checking its price after a month to discover it was reduced further.
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