Cars and Key Fobs: Attacks on Car Remotes

Assignment 5: Cars and Key Fobs Overview Almost all cars currently come with a key fob, which allows you to open the doors, and start the car. When you buy a car, the convenience is the compelling feature. You can leave the key fob in your pocket, and never again worry about having a physical key. It sounds great. The implicit assumption you make is that the key fob system is secure, and that some random person with $50 of hardware can't drive off with your car. You have no real way to tell whether the car company did a reasonable job with their system, so you have to trust them. Unfortunately, that trust is not always warranted. And it isn't until people try to hack these systems that the problems come out. Problems that less scrupulous people may have already been exploiting. Your Car's Key Fob There are lots of different key fob systems. We'll start by looking at the key fob for my 2006 Prius. Key fobs use something called a Remote Keyless System (RKS). In the U.S. these operate a ... Read full article.