WARNING: THEFT OF KEYLESS CARS

42 percent of all British vehicle thefts are committed by hackers and those thefts are now occurring in the U.S.

And here you thought your new keyless car was safe from car thieves, Trey Rusk, a former Texas state law enforcement official and now an investigator with an auto theft task force, issues this warning backed up by an excerpt from the Daily Mail:

I attended the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators Conference in Phoenix the week of August 9. I thought you might want to pass this on to your readers.

Investigators from England told us that 42% of their vehicle thefts were due to vehicles being hacked. It has already arrived here, just not as rampant. I'm sure it will get worse.

The best advice is to buy a visible deterrent like a steering wheel lock. It may be old fashioned, but the thieves will probably move on instead of taking the time trying to defeat it.

From the Daily Mail:

For enterprising criminals, it didn’t take long to find a way of exploiting the technology of keyless cars.

When you buy a car fitted with this technology, you are issued with a keyless ignition fob programmed by the manufacturer with a unique 40-digit code. Place the fob on the dashboard, or just climb into the car with it, and the car’s onboard computer will detect the code. If it matches the one in its memory, the driver is allowed to start the car.

However, the computer is capable of doing more than just checking the code. It can also re-progamme a blank fob with a new code.

And here is where the trouble begins. For just £20, car thieves can buy a blank key fob and a hand-held box that plugs into the ‘on-board diagnostic port’ — a socket linked to the computer which is usually found next to the passenger side footwell.

The hand-held box tells the computer to reprogram the blank fob with a new code. It takes only a few seconds to create a fob that can be used in the car again and again.

These boxes are available on the internet and were designed so that garages and locksmiths could create replacement fobs for owners whose own sets had been lost or stolen.

But they are also easily available to thieves.

Thieves still have to get inside the cars, of course. Some do it the old-fashioned way by smashing a window. Others lurk close to a car as it parks and use a radio-scrambling device — again, easily bought on the internet — to stop the car locking when a driver presses the remote control button.

The devices they use are available on the internet via search engines, auction sites or, in some cases, direct from unscrupulous locksmiths and manufacturers.

After the driver walks away, unaware that he has left his car unlocked, the thieves can climb in, reprogram the security system … and drive off.

Police say drivers of keyless cars should invest in an old-fashioned steel crook lock that hooks around the steering wheel or pedals and costs from £30. These locks were popular in the Eighties and Nineties, but have fallen out of favor in recent years.