Cyberattack: Honda, Acura cars vulnerable to manipulation by hackers – NCC
Researchers have disclosed a vulnerability used by attackers to unlock Honda and Acura car models and start their engines wirelessly, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed.
The commission, on Sunday, alerted telecom consumers and members of the public on an ongoing cyber vulnerability that allows a nearby hacker to unlock vehicles, start their engines wirelessly and make away with the cars.
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Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), the cybersecurity centre for the telecom sector established by NCC, revealed that the vulnerability is a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack or a replay attack in which an attacker intercepts the Radio Frequency (RF) signals normally sent from a remote key fob to the car, manipulates the signals and re-sends them later to unlock the car at will.
“The fact that car remotes are categorised as short-range devices that make use of radio frequency to lock and unlock cars informed the need for the Commission to alert the public on this emergent danger, where hackers take advantage to unlock and start a compromised car. With this latest type of cyber-attack, it is also possible to manipulate the captured commands and re-transmit them to achieve a different outcome altogether,” the commission stated.
A statement issued by NCC Director, Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, explained that when affected, the only mitigation according to the cyberalert unit was to reset the key fob at the dealership.
The affected car manufacturer may also provide a security mechanism that generates fresh codes for each authentication request which makes it difficult for an attacker to “replay” the codes thereafter.
Car owners in the stated categories are advised to choose Passive Keyless Entry (PKE) as opposed to Remote Keyless Entry (RKE), which would make it harder for an attacker to read the signal due to the fact that criminals would need to be at close proximity to carry out their nefarious acts.