2 Million Cars with Anti-Theft Systems Installed by Dealers are at Higher Risk of Theft

The vulnerability is due to a device controlled via a smartphone app that is typically installed by dealerships to manage vehicle inventory and prevent theft. The device, installed underneath the bottom of the dashboard on the driver’s side, connects vehicle and app via Bluetooth. Even if the buyer declines the upgrade, the device remains active, still leaving the vehicle vulnerable to an attacker in certain situations. In the study, researchers identified at least 1.4 million vulnerable vehicles, but further analysis by the UC San Diego researchers increased that number to an estimated 2.2 million – at least. BLE Theft Auto: Evaluating the Security of Aftermarket BLE-based Automotive Remote Control SystemsJerry Yu, Yibo Wei, Sumanth Rao, Mohak Vaswani, Jefferson Chien, Nishant Bhaskar and Aaron Schulman, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego, UC San DiegoChristian Dameff, UC San Diego Health