Tobi Adebayo
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has warned car users about an ongoing cyber-vulnerability that allows hackers to unlock vehicles and steal them.
The commission’s Director of Public Affairs (DPA), Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, made this known in a statement on Sunday.
“The fact that car remotes were categorised as short-range devices that make use of Radio Frequency (RF) to lock and unlock cars informed the need to alert Nigerians on this emergent danger.
“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 fob to the car.
“It 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 RF signals sent from your key fob to the car and resending these signals to take control of your car’s remote keyless entry
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“Besides, the affected car manufacturer may provide a security mechanism that will generate 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,” the statement read in part.
