Your car may demand your fingerprint
Innovators try to back up vulnerable key fobs
Many key fobs are vulnerable to hacking, so security experts say carmakers will soon require fingerprinting.
Fingerprints are required to cash checks at the bank.
Fingerprints are used to access mobile phones.
Cars are next. Not just to open the door, but to start the engine.
“This technology will be used in cars in two to four years,” said Godfrey Cheng, corporate vice president for Silicon Valley-based Synaptics. “Driver identification will be revolutionary.”
Understanding that car fobs present an increasing security risk, auto companies are following the lead of personal technology devices and moving toward vehicle access through fingerprinting, facial recognition and retina scans.
This is not Mission Impossible. This is real life.
Car owners can go online to buy what’s called a Faraday Cage to shield key fob signals from theft. Imagine a traditional sandwich bag made of foil instead of plastic. The metal protection covers are named for Michael Faraday, a scientist who figured out how to block an electromagnetic field.
Newer cars with keyless starting are always waiting for the fob signal. Thieves can buy legitimate devices that amplify or record and replay the fob signal to access the vehicle.
In the near future, fobs will be paired with biometrics.
“You’re no longer relying just on a fob. This will be a fob and a fingerprint,” Cheng said. “We’ll cover touch, sight, hearing and voice. We’ll cover all the senses but taste and smell.”
Rapidly evolving technology
Cheng showed automakers and suppliers a prototype SUV modified to allow access with just a fingerprint. Using a computer notebook, he snapped a photo of a would-be driver’s face, scanned the driver’s fingerprint into the notebook and downloaded the biometric data into the SUV system.
Cheng programmed the car to accept the fingerprint. The driver pressed a fingerprint sensor on the dashboard and started the engine.
Cheng reprogrammed the device to say the driver who belonged to the fingerprint had skipped a car payment. Bam. Car wouldn’t start.
This sort of biometric program will allow vehicle owners to program the car to match the fingerprint – music choices, seat adjustment, navigation settings, temperature selection. This will allow parents to install “geofencing” limits.
“Let’s say we create the ‘teenager mode,’ ” Cheng explained. “You can restrict their access by time, and you can customize the amount of horsepower the teenager has, like if they borrow a Hellcat. It’s irresponsible to lend your 707-horsepower car to a teenager. In the old days, you only had the choice of giving someone the key or not. Now you can geofence them and give them time-based access.”
The car is a lot like Cinderella’s carriage that turns into a pumpkin at midnight.
“Car companies are bringing highspeed connection to the cars, and biometrics are a necessary element of the connected car,” Cheng said. “Without secure biometric authentication, drivers would be distracted with passwords and PINs.”
Biometric authentication could be in place in some products as soon as 2019, predicted Tamara Snow, director of interior systems and technology for North America within Continental.
Convenience over privacy
Though some people may be concerned about privacy, surveys indicate most consumers want convenience.
“There’s a personality that doesn’t want to give Big Brother everything; there’s a discomfort about automobile companies having so much information about us,” said Holly Hubert, a retired FBI cybersecurity expert and founder of GlobalSecurityIQ. “This will take some getting used to. But it’s pretty exciting, thinking about how technologies can be leveraged. If you’re a parent of a teenage driver, these are great things.”
Auto companies are working cautiously – but rapidly – to adapt to a new security landscape without compromising convenience.
“There are ways we can protect the critical function of the vehicle,” said Faye Francy, executive director of the nonprofit Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center. “What we need to do is thwart the threat. Automakers are invested in getting the security literally built into the design.”