The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has alerted telecom consumers and members of the public on an ongoing cyber-vulnerability which allows a nearby hacker to unlock vehicles, start their engines wirelessly and make away with them.
The NCC’s Director of Public Affairs (DPA), Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, made this known in a statement on Sunday in Abuja.
Adinde quoted the latest advisory released by the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) established by the NCC, as saying:
“The fact that car remotes were categorised as short-range devices that make use of Radio Frequency (RF) to lock and unlock cars informed the need to alert Nigerians on this emergent danger.
“The vulnerability is a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack or, more specifically, a replay attack in which an attacker intercepts the RF signals normally sent from a remote key fob to the car.
“It manipulates these signals and re-sends them later to unlock the car at will.
“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.
“Multiple researchers disclosed a vulnerability, which is said to be used by a nearby attacker to unlock some Honda and Acura car models and start their engines wirelessly.
“The attack consists of a threat actor capturing the RF signals sent from your key fob to the car and resending these signals to take control of your car’s remote keyless entry system,” the advisory stated.
He, however, said that the NCC-CSIRT, in the advisory, had offered some precautionary measures or solutions that could be adopted by car owners to prevent falling victim.
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