The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is alerting telecom consumers and members of the public on an ongoing cyber-vulnerability that allows a nearby hacker to unlock vehicles, start their engines wirelessly and make away with the cars.

According to the Commission, the fact that car remotes are categorized as short-range devices that make use of radio frequency (RF) to lock and unlock cars informed the need to alert the general public of this emergent danger, where hackers take advantage to unlock and start a compromised car.

What the NCC is saying

The Commission in the latest advisory released its Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), said: “The vulnerability is a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack or, more specifically, a replay attack in which an attacker intercepts the RF signals normally sent from a remote key to the car, manipulates these signals, and re-sends them later to unlock the car at will.”

“With this latest type of cyber-attack, it is also possible to manipulate the captured commands and re-transmit them to achieve a different outcome altogether.

“Multiple researchers disclosed a vulnerability, which is said to be used by a nearby attacker to unlock some Honda and Acura car models and start their engines wirelessly. The attack consists of a threat actor capturing the radio frequency (RF) signals sent from your key fob to the car and resending these signals to take control of your car’s remote keyless entry system,” the Commission added.

What you can do

The NCC-CSIRT, in the advisory, offers some precautionary measures or solutions that can be adopted by car owners to prevent falling victim to the attack.

• According to the cyber-alert unit of the Commission, when affected, the only mitigation is to reset your key fob at the dealership.
• Besides, the affected car manufacturer may provide a security mechanism that generates fresh codes for each authentication request, this makes it difficult for an attacker to ‘replay’ the codes thereafter. Additionally, vulnerable car users should store their key fobs in signal-blocking ’Faraday pouches’ when not in use.”
• Importantly, car owners in the stated categories are advised to choose Passive Keyless Entry (PKE) as opposed to Remote Keyless Entry (RKE), which would make it harder for an attacker to read the signal due to the fact that criminals would need to be at close proximity to carry out their nefarious acts.
• The PKE is an automotive security system that operates automatically when the user is in proximity to the vehicle, unlocking the door on approach or when the door handle is pulled, and also locking it when the user walks away or touches the car on exit.
• The RKE system, on the other hand, represents the standard solution for conveniently locking and unlocking a vehicle’s doors and luggage compartment by remote control.