Researchers at the University of Birmingham have discovered a hack that’s capable of unlocking and igniting the engines of 100 million sold Volkswagens without even using keys.
This would be an alarming number of Volkswagen units as doubts over the keyless system would escalate.
The researchers said that the can be accessed by using technical devices that are cheap and easy to find.
“It is conceivable that all VW Group (except for some Audi) cars manufactured in the past and partially today rely on a ‘constant-key’ scheme and are thus vulnerable to the attacks,” the research paper said.
The research paper also gave more bad news as they discovered ways hackers could clone VW remote keyless entry controls by standing near the car and waiting for drivers to press their key fobs to intercept the signal.
Volkswagen confirmed that indeed the hack exists but that not all car models are affected by it, it listed the Current Golf, Tiguan, Touran and Passat models as not at risk.
“This current vehicle generation is not afflicted by the problems described,” Peter Weisheit, VW spokesman, said in a statement.
The research paper didn’t say what parts of the car were responsible for the hack as this made VW fearful since a release of the information might be just what hackers need to launch an attack.
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