Category: Blog

We all knew it was only a matter of time before software hackers eventually turned to the comparatively low-hanging fruit of automotive security.  The people who are consistently hacking ssl have turned their sights on the radio signals that allow one to open a car, and they have succeeded according to film footage in this article.

In the footage, people walk up with some kind of wireless key fob and open every vehicle of certain makes they point it at and steal lots of stuff without setting off any car alarm.  Car manufacturers appear to be stumped, as do security experts.  If there is a way to do this, the criminals that developed it aren’t sharing and they didn’t get it from some place like hackaday where exploits are discussed.

This is hard because the wireless key fobs use rolling codes to unlock the door which means that the thieves must circumvent the rolling codes or they must somehow record all of them.  You cannot brute force these because I believe the rolling code cars will stop listening if you do.

The current thought on how this is accomplished is either a taser or a bug zapper or something putting out a big spike of electricity to act on the solenoid in the car’s door that operates the lock.  Time will tell.  Until then, don’t leave anything valuable in your car!

I have seen this happen numerous times.  The solution is always that the linkage has come out of the back of the lock cylinder.  The idea is that when you turn the key, it moves a long wire inside the door and this is connected to the unlock sensor.  If the wire falls out, somebody or something has to put it back in (duh duh duh DUH!)

A warning: If you try to put it back in, you will possibly scratch or crack the plastic panel of your door.  Most cars require that you unscrew lots of screws and then pry off the plastic to get inside the door.  Then there is the possibility of deploying an airbag in the door.  Taking a door off can be a minefield.  You can get a plastic tool from auto part stores for (more) safely removing plastic parts, and if you don’t do anything stupid you probably won’t trigger the airbag.

Once you have the plastic off, just look at the back of the lock.  If there is plastic in the way, it is easy to peel back.  It is glued down and if you are careful about how you peel it up  you can put it back the same way with no tears.  I hope you have the window rolled up!  The lock is probably to the side of the window anyway.  If you have a problem rolling your window up, while you have the panel off you could replace the motor for your window.  Back to the lock.  If the linkage has fallen out, look at the back of the lock and see the connector that hopefully is on the back.  Then look around below the lock for a loose wire that seems out of place.  If you find one, does it connect back to the lock in some obvious way?  Don’t just stick it back on there or it might just fall out again.

I recommend using some 200 mph tape, known to residents of the lower 48 as “duct tape”.  It won’t degrade with hot and cold weather cycles like other fixes I have seen (rubber bands?  Please!)

Of course, check to see if it works once you have reconnected it.  Usually this entails sticking a wire into a plastic wire holder and then wiring it in there or taping it in.  Then stick your key in and turn.  You should be rewarded with the sound of your lock(s) unlocking, assuming your battery is good and you have that type of car.  Otherwise, your reward may take some different but familiar form like the normal sound of your car unlocking.  Whatever.  If it works, it is time to reattach the plastic fabric that is used to keep the inside of your door moisture free.  Make sure that there are no tears.  If there are, you are going to want to tape those shut.  Make sure you don’t leave any tools in there.  Make sure that everything works right including the windows, and that your door will shut and open properly.

Now it is time to reattach the plastic cover for the door again.  You will probably have to reattach some electric connections if you have electric locks and windows, maybe some speaker wires.  Then snap it back on without cracking brittle plastic snap connectors.  The Russians I bought my car from snapped off at least one connector for every plastic part of my car I think, and also some metal ones!

That said, you don’t need every plastic connector.  The screws will hold the door on well enough.  You can probably buy some of these plastic snap connectors from an auto parts store or fleabay.  I never bothered to repair these and just live with the car I bought from the Russians, who wired the plastic panels back on when they broke all the tabs off.

I am not sure how they did it either because it is actually really hard to cut the wires.
They must have wired the dash panel on from the firewall or something because I can barely pry the panel back enough just to nip the wires off!  Russian ingenuity, I will never know.  They beat us to space somehow, no doubt using similar technologies.

I just bought a big packet of spool drivers which are useful for enhancing the security of locks.  Most locksmiths don’t want to deal with pcking these because picking them is hard , so they drill them, but I am loathe to drill a lock without necessity.  I bought a packet of spool drivers for practice and to put in my own locks.  I can put them in your locks just as easily.  Why not have your locks rekeyed and, for a very nominal fee, have one spool driver added?

The spool driver doesn’t make your lock pick or bumpkey-proof, but it will make it harder to use these techniques on your lock.  It will buy time, something that a potential intruder doesn’t usually have.  They want in your house fast so nobody sees them.  They don’t want to stand around picking your lock for 15 minutes while people drive by and the neighbor’s dog barks at them while being walked.  They don’t want to stand around hammering a bumpkey for ten minutes at 1 in the morning, because people will notice.  That is the difference this one little pin makes: where a lock would only take 1 minute to pick, a spool driver increases that time three to five-fold.

So have your lock serviced.  I will replace a few of the drivers in your lock with spool drivers, replace the springs, and change the bottom pins to pair with different keys all in one for nearly the cost of simply changing the bottom pins, or rekeying.  It will add years of life to your lock as well as add layers of security to it.

Yesterday I responded to an emergency lockout at a restaurant.  Presumably a disgruntled former employee had shoved pieces of wood into the keyway of both locks allowing entrance to the restaurant, and the morning crew had unknowingly stuck their keys in to open the restaurant only to shove the alien materials farther into the lock.

I was able to remove these unwanted items from the lock quickly using special tools called key extractors, but most people would be hard-pressed to do this without owning the same tools and knowledge of how to use them.  The way around this problem?  Keyless entry!

Keyless entry is the most exciting possibility for restaurant and other business owners.  Why?  Because it allows you to give each employee a code to type in to enter the building.  On some models, you can see an access log and align it with other data, such as when the safe was stolen or when the business was ransacked/defaced.  On the same models and cheaper models, you can delete the entrance code when an employee becomes a former employee.  This means that you can control access to your business without having to pay me to rekey it every time somebody with a key is terminated.  And I do mean that you can control access.  The instructions that come with keyless entry locks are usually about three pages and are understandable by mortals without a background in locksmithing.

Finally, you may say to yourself, “Yes, yes, this sounds all fine and dandy, but what if somebody just takes a baseball bat to this lock and beats it to a pulp?”  To which I answer, your business is probably located somewhere with night security or at least people within earshot.  In the big city, people can’t go around beating on doors or sawing through them with reciprocating saws without attracting attention.  Furthermore, they could use these tools now against your business.  For that matter, they could take a jackhammer and go through your ceiling.  What keyless entry does provide is a great way to control entry access to your business with the ability to immediately adjust it for free, without the restriction of keyways that can be filled with bark or even worse, glue.

Give me a call and we’ll talk about the costs and timeframe of getting one of these on your door.