Car Theft by Hacking

Computer hackers can force some cars to unlock their doors and start their engines without a key by sending specially crafted messages to a car's anti-theft system. They can also snoop at where you've been by tapping the car's GPS system...

Researchers from iSEC Partners recently demonstrated such an attack on a Subaru Outback equipped with a vulnerable alarm system, which wasn't identified. With a laptop perched on the hood, they sent the Subaru's alarm system commands to unlock the doors and start the engine.

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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011/08/Cars-vulnerable-to-theft-by-hacking/50057610/1

This is kind of scary, especially with a lot of technology shifting in this direction. I know that a lot of people rely on car alarms and home alarms to keep their things safe. I wonder if there has been any infiltration into home alarms with this tactic? Could I find a alarm shop via angie's list?

Unless it has an RF or internet connection to the outside world, it would not be vulnerable...

leafer12 said:

I wonder if there has been any infiltration into home alarms with this tactic?

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In general, the more signals something accepts from outside, the more points of potential intrusion there are. If your home gives you some Homelink type function which allows you to disarm the alarm and unlock the doors all remotely, then in theory someone who can hack that message can unlock your doors remotely. If, however, your home requires you to unlock doors manually and enter a keycode to disarm the alarms, then they still have to get inside and enter that code.

Now, obviously, this is an oversimplification; if the external signals are unique to your system (homebrew) and cryptographically secured somehow, obviously that's going to be harder for someone than picking a generic, standard physical door lock. But if you use an off-the-shelf system that tons of other people use and there turns out to be a flaw in that system, everyone -- including you -- is now compromised.