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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Trade In Your Volkswagen Before It Gets Hacked

August 17, 2016

Apparently, it's not that hard to unlock every Volkswagen built since 1995 with an Arduino-based RF transceiver that costs around $40. Computer scientists from the University of Birmingham and the German engineering firm Kasper & Oswald have been able to reverse engineer one component inside a Volkswagen's network to extract a cryptographic key that is shared among millions of Volkswagen vehicles. Coupled with eavesdropping and recording the rolling code values of the keyless entry system, they are able to decrypt the signal and unlock the car. Only the most recent VW Golf 7 model and others that use unique keys are immune to the attack.

I really wish I still had my 1970 Dodge Challenger 340 4 barrel muscle car. Besides being a fun drive and easy to work on, you only had to worry about someone with a Slim Jim unlocking your car instead of someone hiding in the bushes with a wireless radio transceiver.

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