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

Encryption Flaw Exposes Keys for Hyundai, Kia and Toyota Vehicles

March 9, 2020

The government keeps pushing for encryption backdoors. Apparently, vehicle manufacturers are helping by selling faulty encryption mechanisms. Ars technica reports that owners of keyless start systems from Toyota, Hyundai and Kia are at risk from hackers cloning the keys and has posted a list of the impacted vehicles.

The flaw is in how the encryption was implemented with the Texas Instruments DST80 system. Security researchers were able to use an inexpensive Proxmark RFID reader/transmitter device to gather enough information to derive the secret cryptographic value needed to allow cloning. The manufacturers claim that the problem impacts older vehicles and has been fixed with the newer models. Perhaps it's time to get a new car.

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